Motivational New Year content blesses our screens earlier and earlier each year, meaning it’s easy to feel behind if you if you haven’t meticulously strategized the next 12 months and hit the ground running by January 1st.
This narrative is totally unrealistic considering how busy the end of year is, and it turns January into a waste of time, with most people running out of steam by holding themselves to unrealistic standards trying to achieve half-baked goals.
The quiet, slow-moving month of January is actually the perfect opportunity to be kind to yourself, reflect and sow the seeds for the year ahead with consideration and intention.
I’m going to walk you through exactly how to set your goals for 2025 and use this month to manifest your best year yet.
Step One: Purge
If you haven’t already, you need to expel any negative, old, stagnant energy from your space:
Throw away or donate anything that doesn’t serve you and clean your home from top to bottom. You don’t have to do all of this in one day but make it a priority this month.
When this is done, open the windows and burn sage or incense to cleanse your home, working thoroughly by going from corner to corner in each room. Finish off by grabbing a broom, opening your front door, and sweeping outwards to really push out any bad energy.
Now you want to clean yourself. Hop in the shower and thoroughly wash your hair and body. As you rinse, visualise all of the thoughts, feelings etc you wish to leave in the past year going down the drain. Finish by completing your usual skin care routine, moisturising your body, and detoxing with a big glass of water.
The goal of this step is to mentally, physically and spiritually reset for the new year, ridding yourself of the old and creating space for the new.
Step Two: Reflection
If you want to set meaningful goals for the year ahead, it’s essential you take some time to reflect.
Consider where you wanted to be at this point in your life, and how your reality matches up to that. Ask yourself:
- In the last year, did you achieve everything you set out to achieve?
- If not, why? Was it due to obstacles? A lack of time, effort, or planning?
- Was there anything you didn’t achieve because it no longer makes sense for you? And crucially, is there anything you did achieve that no longer makes sense for you?
Here you want to determine whether 2025 is a year to push further along the same path you already had set out for yourself, change course, or create a new roadmap from scratch.
The second part of the reflection is more fun: you want to consider what you want your life to look like and why. I recently saw a Tik Tok which went into how, when we consider our futures, we tend to think about hitting big milestones and significant events, but in reality, the majority of your life is made up of random uneventful weekdays. So, consider:
- What does your ideal random Tuesday look like?
- How do you spend your time?
- What kind of things are you doing?
- Where do you live?
- Who are you with?
- What kind of person are you?
- How do you feel?
Doing these two reflections is essential for ensuring the goals you go on to set are meaningful and make sense for you.
Step Three: Setting Goals
As a result of your reflections, you will have a good idea of the person you have been and the life you have been living, versus the person you want to be and the life you want to live. You now need to identify what actions you need to take, i.e., the goals you need to set, to achieve them.
Get clear on your goals and write them down. The act of writing out your goals is extremely powerful. Spiritually, it’s an act of putting in a request to manifest your dreams and desires to the universe, and scientifically, it was found that individuals who wrote down their aspirations were 42% more likely to realise them than those who didn’t.
I recommend, writing your goals down digitally during this deciding stage, so you can edit them as needed and they are easy to break down (this will be the next step!).
Make your goals SMART
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Timebound
For example, ‘Save money’ is not SMART, whereas “I will save £5000 over the next 12 months” is. If you’re struggling to turn your goals into SMART goals, breaking down the actions and time needed to achieve them will help (see Step Four).
Finally, don’t fall into the trap of writing too many goals for the sake of it. A small quantity of meaningful goals that make sense for you is infinitely better.
Step Four: Making the Blueprint
This step looks at working backwards and getting really specific to determine what you need to do every quarter, month, week and day to achieve your goals. For example, if one of your goals was to make social media your full-time job, this might look like:
Daily
- Post content to main Tik-Tok and Instagram feeds and one story on either platform
- Spend half an hour replying to comments, liking others content and sharing posts
- Note engagement metrics in a tracker spreadsheet
Weekly
- Analyse engagement metrics to determine what posts are performing well
- Research and identify trends you could incorporate into your content
- Dedicate a day to batch shooting, editing and creating posts for the week
Monthly
- Develop a detailed content calendar and posting schedule
- Send out proposals for sponsorships and collaborations to 5 brands/creators
- Incorporate different types of content that you don’t post daily to keep your feed fresh
Quarterly
- Refresh your profile, aesthetic, bio and overall theme to stay aligned with your niche
- Identify areas for improvement, e, g. take courses, upgrade software or equipment
- Refine specific, measurable objectives (e.g., gain 10K followers, secure $5K in sponsorships)
That’s quite a lengthy example, but it depends on how many complexities go into your goal. For example, if one of your goals was simply to exercise for three hours a week, that might just look like doing 1 hour of cardio, 1 hour of weight training and 1 hour of Pilates a week – and it doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that.
Jot down all of your daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly to do’s in one place (my preference is to do this on Notion) and use them as a guide when planning and making your to do list(s) for the day/week/month etc.
Step Five: Vision Boarding
Now that you’ve established your dreams and desires comes the fun part. Get yourself a drink and a snack, open Pinterest and collate pictures that inspire you and reflect the vision you have for your life. Use Canva or Photoshop to compile your images into a collage or print the images and stick to some posterboard to make a physical vision board.
Regardless of the type of vision board you go with, when it is done, you want to put it somewhere you will see it every day. If you’ve opted for a digital vision board, you can even make it your laptop and phone screensaver (this is my preference!).
You want your vision board to be a constant reminder of your goals, so they stay at the top of your mind and keep you focused, motivated, positive, and active.
Constantly seeing your vision board also helps to programme your goals into your subconscious mind. Therefore, be fussy with every image, graphic, sticker and bit of text you add to your vision board. Pick images that truly make you feel something and relate to your goals. The more your vision board resonates with you and represents what’s in your heart, the more effective it will be in helping you to manifest your dream life.
That’s it! Five simple steps you can take this January to ensure that 2025 is your best year yet. I truly do feel that 2025 is going to be a special year for so many people. I hope you found this post realistic and helpful, and if nothing else just a reminder that January 1st was literally just another Wednesday – you have the power to start living the life you want to live at any point, regardless of the date!
Fin
