Episode 37 | Goal Setting for 2025

At the beginning of every year the question, "So what are your goals going to be?" is one we all hear in some way, shape, or form, whether that's in work or in our personal life.

 

For some people, setting goals is easy, while for others the idea of setting an achievable goal for the year can be very challenging.

 

Niamh, how can we look at goals to make sure we're setting the right ones in the right way? Hello, hello, and welcome back to The Better Workday Podcast, and Happy New Year.

 

I enjoyed a good few weeks off, and it was absolutely lovely, and now I'm excited for 2025. In this episode, I'm going to share my approach for the year ahead, but I also want to share some of the ideas that I used for my approach. So I'm going to be pulling out some of my favorite concepts from three books that I come back to time and time again, and those books are The 12 Week Year,

 

Your Best Year Ever, and The One Thing. If you haven't read these books yet, I highly recommend them. They are full of actionable practical tips plus new ideas to get you thinking in a different way. And you know I always believe we need both of those things, that we need to be able to shift our mindset and act in different ways in order to make some change.

 

If you have read them, this might be your reminder to pick one of them back up again, because they are just that good. I'm going to start with The 12 Week Year, and I love this because there is such a clear focus on execution.

 

Instead of looking at a 12-month year, Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington want us to look at a 12-week year. The whole idea around this is that annualized thinking, or thinking in 12-month time blocks, lacks urgency, and somehow we think we'll be able to make it up later in the year.

 

So, you know, if you get to the end of January and you haven't made a lot of progress on our goals, you're likely to say, "Oh, I've got the rest of the year left. I've got loads of time."

 

Or, you know, a trap I've fallen into a lot in the past was, "Well, I'm sure Q3 is going to be great. So I'm putting all my eggs in the Q3 basket."

 

What we look at in this book is the idea that in a year, every day and every week counts. And so if we focus on a 12-week year, you bring the excitement, the energy, and the focus that usually happens at year-end right into your continuous working cycle. And I really like that, because I know for me,

 

I can often wane in terms of motivation and feel like I've got plenty of time to get things done later. But obviously, that can lead into procrastination, which can cause more stress down the line.

 

So this idea of focusing on 12-week years, which are closed blocks to get your goals done, is really appealing to me.

 

And another thing that I really like about it is that 12-week planning is more predictable than 12-month planning. It's very hard to plan for

 

August, September, October in detail when you're in January. There are so much unknowns that are left to be discovered. However, if you're looking at the next 12 weeks, you can make better guesses or better assumptions, and it feels like a more realistic plan, a more predictable plan.

 

My favorite part of the course in The 12 Week Year is week 13, because this is an opportunity to have an extra week of effort if you haven't quite met your goal, but also, it's a good opportunity to assess how the last 12 weeks have gone and an opportunity to maybe change that approach for the next 12 weeks, and of course, to recognize and celebrate your success.

 

The reason I like to use The 12 Week Year is because in my life and in my business there are a lot of things which are predictable, absolutely, but there's also ongoing change. I've got a young family.

 

I've got a business that is still growing, and so a year is a long time. If I focus on a 12-week year, it really gives me that sense of control. It gives me that sense of healthy urgency that I need to keep up my daily and weekly activities without feeling overwhelmed or under that Q4 December pressure.

 

I really like the approach. If you like it as well, what you could do for January, February, and March is create your 12-week year goals and work towards them, and then use the final week of the quarter to reflect on them and see what you're going to change.

 

And when you're setting the goals, you might take some ideas from Your Best Year Ever by Michael Hyatt. Again, I love this book. Love, love, love.

 

And I'm just going to share two ideas from the book that you can maybe consider. The first is, Michael talks about SMARTER goals. SMART is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

 

So they're already included. And then he also includes exciting and risky. And I love this. First of all, exciting.

 

If you don't find your goals exciting, you just won't have the motivation to keep on going when things get tough. You know this, I know this. We've all been there. We've set a goal, either professionally or personally, and we're just not into it. We're just not excited about it.

 

It's mundane, it's boring, it's not challenging enough. It's not something we really want to do. And so when we hit the first roadblock, we're like, "That's it. I give up."

 

If you enjoy the goal, if you enjoy what you're working towards, if you're excited about what it's going to bring, that really helps you to keep on going even when you hit those roadblocks, those stumbling blocks.

 

And they are inevitable. And the other part then is risky. This is the idea that you'll be looking always to have stretch goals. So not goals that are going to challenge you so much that you're going to break.

 

And by that I mean that you don't have the resources or the capacity to be able to achieve them. But we do want goals that are going to stretch us, that are going to help us to grow through the process, that are going to bring us to the next level, regardless of whether that's at work or in another area of our lives.And so by checking your goals to see, yes, are they smart? But also are they exciting? And are they a little bit risky? It just brings that level of excitement and momentum to the goal.

 

And then Michael breaks down two different types of goals, and I really like the terms he uses for them, and they are achievement goals and habit goals.

 

Achievement goals are one-time accomplishments, so for example, I want to run my first marathon by the 1st of June. And then habit goals are the things that you're trying to build into your day-to-day, a practice that you're trying to maintain.

 

So for example, that could be you want to run three miles on weekdays at 7:00 AM starting on January 15th.

 

I think having the two types of goals wrapped into your 12-week plan is a really good idea, because you do need the habit goals in order to achieve your achievement goals. If you're trying to achieve something new, if you're trying to go somewhere you haven't gone before, you have to do something differently, and so those new behaviors are critical to your success.

 

And then the final thing that I pulled from this book, and every time I read it, I'm like, "Oh yeah, I forgot about that." And it's so good, is this idea that there is no plan B.

 

So researchers have found that when we create backup plans, we can reduce our chances of achieving our goal, because the very existence of a plan B can undermine your plan A.

 

You might divide your energy between one plan and another, or you might settle for second best too soon, and this is a trap I have fallen into for years. The idea is that your plan is your plan.

 

You have one plan and that's the plan that you work towards. And even having that single focus and not having to worry about, oh, what if I do this instead? Or what if I do that instead?

 

Can really help keep you focused, yes, but also reduce the noise in terms of what you have to do on a daily basis and the number of decisions you have to make around what you have to do. And that ties nicely in with my third book which is The One Thing by Gary Keller. I love, love, love this book.

 

for today, Okay, I love all the books, but this one in particular I find very calming, and I always feel like I'm more in control of my plan after I read it. The first idea that I take from this book is the idea of redefining work/life balance.

 

Gary says that when we say we're out of balance, we're usually referring to a sense that some priorities are being underserved or unmet. And I think that is so true. What he says is, and this is what gives me peace, is the problem is that when you focus on what's truly important, something will always be underserved.

 

You can't be everywhere doing everything for all people at the same time. It's just not possible.

 

And so Gary suggests that instead of trying to find balance, which is keeping all the balls in the air at the same time, to look at counterbalance, which is to go into one area and to focus on that, and then move over to the next area and focus on that.

 

In work, you might say, "I'm dedicating most of my time to this project," and a lot of other stuff gets dropped, a lot of other stuff gets missed, and that's fine because you're focusing on the one thing at work and that's going to yield great results.

 

But in our personal lives, we can't do that. Like you can't focus on your family for so long that you neglect your personal health, for example. Or you can't focus on, I dunno, doing up the garden for so long that you neglect your friendship. You can't focus on spirituality for so long that you neglect the relationships that matter here in the here and now.

 

And so the idea is that in your personal life, you move from those areas, you move through those areas quite regularly, always making sure that you don't neglect any of them for too long.

 

And so it's a really nice idea, I think, for looking at the difference between what balance looks like in your work life and in your life overall. They're not the same. They shouldn't be treated the same.

 

Knowing that gives me a lot of peace and helps me make better decisions about how I'm going to spend my time. Now my favorite, favorite part of the book is, I think it's only two pages long, and it's this concept of unclenching.

 

Gary tells this story of how he looked at, uh, clenching his way to success. He tried to do everything harder, clenched jaw, clenched fists, clenched face, working harder, getting more done, pushing, pushing, pushing, feeling like you're clenched up trying to get everything done. And when I read that I was like, "Oh my God, I was clenched for like most of my professional life."

 

It's such a good word to use for that feeling. What Gary says is once he started to unclench, to relax and start to look at what really matters and make sure that he's spending his time in the right areas at the right time, then that all fell away. And what that means is when he should be working, he was working. And when he should be dealing with or looking after personal areas of his life, that's where he was.

 

And so it's less about trying to do it all, but more about making sure that you're doing the right things at the time you should be doing them. And the big question then that he brings to ask in this book is what he calls the focusing question.

 

And that question is, what's the one thing I can do such by doing it, everything else will become easier or unnecessary? If we look at your goals for the next year or if you're looking at the next 12 weeks, it's important to be able to prioritize your work because as we've just discussed, you can't do everything at the same time.

 

And so being able to answer this question really gives you power over how you're going to prioritize. And so again, the question is, what's the one thing

 

I can do such by doing it, everything else will become easier or unnecessary? Every week I ask myself that question both at work and at home.

 

And it really helps focus and give me confidence that I am spending my time in the best way that I can.It's interesting that all three books talk about blocking time. They call it different things, but basically having time for deep work, having time for b- the bits and pieces, and having time for rest.

 

And that idea of having those blocks of time so that you are doing what you should be doing when you're best suited to do it.

 

And they all have a big focus on action, which is why I love them. These are the kind of books that can help create my thinking, or help form my thinking around my goals. And at this point, I suppose I should tell you what my goals are for the year ahead.

 

I do have both professional and personal goals. Professionally, I have a revenue target, and I have an hours worked target. Obviously, I want to continue to have a growing, thriving, successful business, and I have a revenue goal that helps me measure how I'm doing towards that.

 

But being available and being around my kids and my family is very important to me, and I don't want to be working ridiculous hours. I am a recovering workaholic.

 

I used to work 60, 70 hours a week quite happily. So I set an upper limit for the number of hours I want to work each week to make sure that I achieve my revenue goal in a sustainable way, in a way that supports the other areas of my life.

 

Going back to the counterbalance idea that I don't spend so long in work neglect the other areas of my life, okay? that I And then on a personal note, I am going to run another marathon this year.

 

This year, I'm looking at the Dingle Marathon, which e- I'm so excited about, because it's super hilly and it's probably going to be very, very hard. I've heard it's very, very tough. But I love Dingle. I love the scenery. I've all good memories in Dingle. It's such a happy place for me.

 

And look, if I'm walking around the place for seven hours because I'm not able to run, I'm still going to enjoy it, because it's a wonderful place. So my goal for this year is to complete that marathon.

 

Then what I do is I always choose a word for the year, or a theme for the year. And this, to me, is probably more important than the specific goals that I set, because it's my anchor.

 

So last year, 2024, my theme of the year was consistency. I needed to decide what I wanted to do consistently at home and in work.

 

At home, that meant doing exercise a certain number of times a week, seeing my family more consistently, and doing other bits and pieces. And it took a while to figure out what that looked like, but it really served me.

 

And in work, it was around trying to figure out how I was going to show up consistently on social media, or in blogs, or podcasts, so what was I going to do? And I found that the podcast was the best way for me to do it.

 

And by bringing that consistency in different areas of my life, I found that it really, uh, reduced an awful lot of noise, um, reduced an awful lot of being on the back foot, and helped me be proactive on the things that mattered most.

 

2025, my theme for the year is nurture, and I'm very excited about this theme. I think it's why I'm looking forward to the year so much. And I know, I mean, I'm Irish, and we're terrible for not being able to, you know, acknowledge our achievements.

 

But I've done an awful lot over the last number of years. I've left my corporate job, started my own business, grown it. I've had two kids. You know, I've got two kids under the age of five, gotten married. We've done so much, and

 

I've got a fabulous group of friends. I've got a great family, and there's so much good in my life. I want this year to nurture what I have.

 

Instead of moving on to the next shiny thing, I really want to take a moment to really enjoy what life has given me.

 

So from a personal perspective, that's really nurturing my friendships, my family, nurturing my health, and the fact that I have a body that can run and do lots of other things, like dance, and play with the kids, and do all that kind of stuff. I want to nurture the home that we have. You know, we're very lucky to have it, so

 

I want to take care of it. And then in work, it's about nurturing my clients, the people who subscribe to this podcast, and people who are on my email list. It's about nurturing the current programs that I have. So instead of inventing new ones, to update those ones and make sure that they're fresh and that they're healthy.

 

Even for the processes that I've put in place and the knowledge I've gained, again, just to take a look at them and say, "How can I help them grow better?" It's really... uh, look, you can probably hear it. I'm just so excited about this idea, because I feel like there's so much already done, and a little bit of extra love, and support, and ten-... is it te- tending?

 

Love, and support, and tending to what I already have will really gr- produce great results this year. And then next year will, will probably be a different type of focus.

 

And finally, I always try to take out a word every year. So this year, the word I'm going to use less is busy.

 

I just think this word creates all sorts of feelings and thoughts that are absolutely unnecessary. I don't know about you, but if someone says to me, "How are you, how are you today? What are you up to?" I'm like, "I'm busy."

 

And I'm busy always feels like frantic, and, "I have loads to do, and I'm time short," and like unhealthy urgency, and, "I'm busy, busy, busy, busy." it's Whereas if somebody says, "Well, how's your day looking?" and I reply saying, "Yeah, I've got a few things to do today, but I've got a good plan, and I hope to get them all done," it just feels so different, you know? It's like, yes, there are things to be done, but I can do them. They will get done.

 

And so it's this difference between being busy and being productive, and I find that even the word busy makes me feel like I'm under that pressure, which i- is completely invented.

 

And so I'm not using the word busy this year. For you, I might ask, is there a word that you use that, you know, doesn't create the best feelings and cre- create the best thoughts for you? And if that's the case, maybe you want to use it less in 2025.

 

From a practical perspective, what I'm doing, or what I have done now at this stage, is I reviewed my calendar to make sure that I do have realistic blocks of time. I've set up my metrics for the year. They have changed from 2024 a little bit, again, to focus on that nurturing, um, theme for the year ahead.

 

And I have reviewed my no-matter-what work. This is the work that I must do no matter what in order to keep things ticking over.

 

And now that those are done, I'm really, really looking forward to the months ahead. So to wrap this episode up, in the show notes, I will include links to all three books that I've mentioned.

 

I'm also going to include the link to my Goal Ladder Guide. This is a fantastic guide for you to help you set and achieve your goals in the year ahead. Even if you've already set your goals, this is a really good guide to go through to make sure that you've thought through everything and to set you up in the best way possible.

 

If you want to take it one step further, my self-paced course has been updated. It's now called The Better Workday Blueprint, and I will include a link to that as well.

 

And finally, if you are interested in creating a better workday for your team in the year ahead, just drop me an email. My contact details are in the show notes. I'd be delighted to have a call with you.

 

And so that's it for this episode, all things goal setting in 2025. I hope you found it helpful. As always, please share this with a friend or colleague who might benefit from

 

And until next time, it. stay well, and have a better workday. Thank you for tuning in. We hope you enjoyed this episode. The Better Workday Podcast is about helping you have a better workday, so we'd love to hear your thoughts and questions.

 

You can find our social media details, as well as any references from this episode, in the show notes.