How to plan for 2025 - Personal Goals

A guide to simple goal setting

It’s December and I can smell the peppermint, pine trees, and the opportunity of a new year. While you can start goal setting at any point in the year or life, I think that most people look at life in years and January 1st can feel really fresh.

Goal setting is something that I actually really love doing, and it’s allowed me to create a life that I love and am quite happy with! I’ve been setting personal and professional goals since about 2013 - and I wanted to share with you my pared down approach as a person who has a lot going on.

[I started goal setting with Cultivate What Matters, and would recommend their system if you want something more guided and built out].

This is part one of a two part series, my next newsletter will be on how to set career goals!

I know that not everyone is in the headspace for planning, or likes to plan. People’s idea of what a life well lived is different, and this is just how my brain works. If this isn’t how your brain works, great! I also don’t think you need to make drastic changes. I’ve found that showing up for myself with discipline and a lot of grace has positively impacted my life.

What is goal setting?

Have you always wanted to create a family culture that loves going outside and board games? Do you want to prioritize your own hobbies, healthy habits, or home projects? Are you and your partner looking to prioritize your relationship more?

Goal setting as adults is about helping yourself to create a life you love. For me, the process of goal setting helps me to clarify what I want. I can confidently say that I know I am headed in the right direction for me and my family.

Goal setting doesn’t need to be corporate, it can just been making an accountable action for yourself. I think you’ll find yourself happier as you check off boxes and see yourself making progress towards a life you love.

Step 1: Journaling/Brain Dumping

Grab a notebook, journal, or use your notes app to answer the following questions.

1. What does the best version of my life look like 20 years?

2. What does the best version of my life look like in 10 years?

3. What does the most idealized version of a regular Wednesday look like for me right now?

Look at your answers - what habits or goals do you see in your answers? Do you see yourself living somewhere else, or having built a large garden you spend time in?

Pull out a few goals that would help you get to your idealized version of your life.

Here are a few categories to consider:

1. Family culture/life

2. Daily health habits

3. Career goals

4. Community/friend goals

Step 2: Identifying habits

Looking at this habits/goals in each category - is there a way to create add these habits or goals into your routines already? Take the big goals or habits that you identified in step 1 and think of how you can break down the steps.

For example - I want to do more game nights with my young family, so I’m going to make it a goal to schedule two game nights a month with my husband so that we can start that habit as a family.

Another example - I want to stay more on top of our finances this year, so I have made a goal to fill out our Wealth Planner every two weeks instead of leaving it to a very large monthly task.

Or are you trying to start your day with water instead of coffee? Start by making a goal of having a full water bottle on your night stand or in your bathroom at night so when you wake up, you have water easily accessible before you get your coffee.

The thing about creating a life you love is that it is often found in the little things. Start building trust in yourself by doing a small thing everyday that you say you will. A water bottle first thing in the morning can lead to taking a big leap like buying a house in Vermont or moving to Amsterdam.

Step 3: Start Small

I suggest that you get a habit tracker, I personally use

Dani Bruflodt

as my organization guru, and build out habits that you want to see yourself do daily, weekly, and monthly. (Her substack is absolutely worth it, cannot recommend it enough).

I would also recommend that you start with a small list of habits, and do monthly check ins to see if you’re hitting your goals.

For me personally, I’ve started with my “ideal” day and week

Step 4: Big Projects/Goals

Something I’ve tried myself is to schedule big projects or to-do items on a monthly basis using the apple reminders app. It includes things like updating my daughter’s baby book, planning birthday parties, planning my new garden, and looking into 4k sign up for my son.

Here is the example for January and February:

This is what works for me in my current circumstances. I don’t have any big, lofty goals at the moment. Definitely later, but right now I am really content working on home projects and getting outside with my family.

Step 5: Vision Board [Optional]

Are you a really visual person? I am. I love Pinterest and have been making a yearly vision board for almost a decade. I love being able to visually pin what I want my year to look like. Quotes and pictures like my own personal magazine.

This year I’ve started pinning photos of where we’re going to travel, ideas for home projects, an idealized photo of family game nights and camping. I honestly add to it as the year goes on and open it most every week day.

I think there is something very powerful in manifestation, and having visuals really helps to imagine what you want to happen. Throughout the year I like to add to it as I find things that really inspires how I want to live!

Here are my boards: 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019

Step 6: Word of the Year [Optional]

Another really fun thing to do is to look at your goals, and think about a word that represents what you want your year to look like. I recommend listening to this episode of the Gretchen Rubin podcast where they discuss choosing a word of the year.

In the past, I’ve used the following words: Cultivate, Intention, Growth, Consistency, Abundance, and Savor.

This upcoming year, I’ve chosen the word “momentum”. This fall I have really started to get “my pink back” as a mom of two. I want to continue that as I prioritize my health and personal goals instead of just pure survival.

Here is a link to a list of words.

One tip - use ChatGPT to ask for the full definition of your word, and then ask it for a physical representation of your word. It’s a lovely way to mark your life.

I don’t think that you need a lot of goals to make your life worthwhile. I personally enjoy setting goals because I like showing that I am counting my days. As an adult, the years go by so quickly because there isn’t school years to set them apart. Goal setting helps me to measure my life somehow and to not let it pass me by. I’ve cultivated this incredibly beautiful life that I live right now by taking some time to think about what I wanted it to look like and scheduling my daily life to get me there.

Do you do a lot of goal setting? What is your process? I’d love to know what you’re looking at!

Watching: We have watched The Grinch, the animated version, at least 20 times by now? I also really like Klaus on Netflix if you’re looking for something animated but a change of pace.

Reading: I’m in a bit of a slump, I’m making my way through Impact Players, and it’s really informative. It’s just not making me want to sit down and read. I think that I will see what my book club recommends this week!

Eating: Reindeer eyes - the treat! You take round pretzels & put a Hershey’s or Rollo in the middle of the pretzel. Pop a tray of them in the oven for 8 minutes at 200 degrees, and then right as they come out, gently push m&ms into the middle of the Hersey or Rollo. I like to pop them in the freezer to cool them down, but you can also just let them cool in the open. I highly recommend using parchment paper, NOT wax paper to make these.