New year, same you: how I'm approaching goal setting this year

An exploration of my annual reflection and goal-setting process, with an example goal, to inspire you on your own journey.

Jan 17, 2025

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Dear Reader,

Welcome to 2025 folks - you’ve made it!

I’ve held off on this newsletter for a grand total of 16 days because I know everyone’s newsfeeds are filled with goal-setting content on New Year’s Day. However, I’ve seen the power of setting goals in my own life and the lives of many others, so I want to contribute my thoughts to the conversation.

I’m not selling a magical cure; I'm just sharing how I tackle the big things I want to achieve each year and ensure I enjoy the journey.

Let’s jump in!

I’m someone who loves setting goals and working towards results. That makes the 1st of January a great date for me to benchmark against.

Yet, it’s just a date.

Most of our New Year’s Resolutions don’t work.

Especially when we return to the business of our lives after a well-deserved break.

So why do I still use it?

Even though you can set goals and start taking action at any point in the year, there’s something helpful about having time off from work over the Christmas break to properly reflect on the year and start identifying my direction for the coming year.

Because having some direction for the year is important, even if you don’t want to set goals.

Some people choose a word for the year, such as focus, balance, patience, or experimentation, that informs their choices over the following 12 months.

Find something that feels right for you.

“If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.”
~Zig Ziglar

I thought it would be helpful to document my reflection and goal-setting process, with an example goal, in the hope that it might inspire you on your journey.

Let’s start by reflecting on the past year 💭

Step 1: identify all your key memories, moments and milestones

Use your calendar, photo album, social media posts and bank statements to list down any significant events from the past year. I like to write down each month of the year and have a list of 5-10 items under each month.

This activity allows you to appreciate everything you did last year and start identifying what you want to do more of this year. It also serves as a great memory bank!

Step 2: take time to reflect on the past year

I love to journal and answer some of the following questions because taking the time to pause and reflect helps inform my goals for the year and the changes I want to make.

Here are some reflection questions to consider:

What are you most grateful for from 2024? What do you want to bring with you into 2025?
Look at your significant expenses and purchases from 2024. How do you feel looking back at these now?
Look at your list of key moments from 2024. What themes and activities stand out to you?
What do you want 2025 to look like? Is there a word, energy or feeling you want to bring with you into the new year?
Imagine yourself in 12 months' time. What have you experienced, learned and achieved?
What do you want to do more of/less of this year? How can you work backwards from this to figure out what your goals are?
What has held you back in the past from reaching your goals? Identify and write down your challenges. How could you overcome them this year? (think of this as a pre-mortem for your 2025 goals)

Step 3: brainstorm everything you might like to do and accomplish this year

There are probably a lot of ideas swirling around your mind of what you might like to do and achieve this year. They might be things like learn French, write a book, meet the love of my life, get a payrise, change careers, start a new course, start a business, start investing or the absolute classic goal, get fit.

Get everything out of your head and onto the page, even if you don’t think it’s a possibility this year. The more specific, the better.

Instead of just writing travel, study or invest, think about adding more details like where, what and how.

Add a little bit of reality back into the mix now. What time and resources do you realistically have available this year?

You can now start to group your ideas together into rough categories and order them according to what feels most urgent to you right now.

Ask yourself: What would you be disappointed not starting/working on/achieving when you look back in 12 months' time?

You might want to go on trips to Thailand, Paris, and Antarctica, but you don’t have the money, time, or energy to do all three.

Thinking about the financial and time resources you have available is essential.

So, knowing you have finite resources, what’s most important to you this year?

I like to add a list to the bottom of my annual goal-setting document of things I still really want to do or achieve that won’t realistically happen in the next 12 months.

I’m not saying I can’t work towards them, or they’re no longer in the picture.

I’m just prioritising what’s most important to me this year.

✅ Bonus step

Something else that helps me work out what goals are most important to me is writing a list of my priorities for the year and the things I’m actively de-prioritising.

My Priorities for 2025

In order of importance for my goals this year.

E.g. my health & wellbeing

Actively De-Prioritising in 2025

Aka things I’m okay with focusing on less this year.

E.g. adding any extra commitments to my plate

Step 4: set goals that you’re excited to work towards

Now you know roughly what you’d like to work towards, it’s time to turn these ideas into goals. I like to do this in a Google document so I can go back and edit over a few weeks as they evolve.

I like to take all the ideas that stood out to me in step 3 and divide them into the following goal categories. (Find ones that work for you!).

Community & relationships
Creativity & adventure
Health & wellbeing
Learning & development
Money & business
Misc.

I then like to add a line or two about why that particular goal is important to me and get specific about what success looks like. I also differentiate between outcome-specific goals like “go backpacking in Europe” and ongoing/routine goals like “daily movement”, as my action steps, check-ins and timeframe look quite different.

Heads up: Don’t forget to add relationship and well-being goals to your list. Many of us get stuck thinking about our finances and careers and forget that a lot of our happiness comes from investing our time and money into our relationships and our health.

Step 5: turn your goals into actionable steps

Now the big task, which might take you a little longer.

How can you turn all your outcome-focused goals into achievable input-based steps?

And how can you turn your ongoing/routine goals into daily or weekly habits and rituals?

I like to work backwards as much as possible. What will I need to do in Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4 to reach my goal? What does that look like each month? Each week? Each day?

Here’s a rough framework I fill out for each of my goals.

Example goal: saving $10,000 for your emergency fund

Bonus tip: find ways to keep yourself accountable. That could look like a friend/partner/mentor/colleague/coach you check in with each week, joining a group related to your goal, or even an online tool like Focusmate (I’ve heard good things about this platform but haven’t used it personally).

👀 Basically, this is my process:

Identify the outcome
Pinpoint regular milestones towards that outcome
Find monthly/weekly goals to hit the milestones
Create action items each week to hit your monthly/weekly goals
Find time in your calendar to complete these actions
Add in some form of a weekly check-in and monthly review process

Step 6: find ways to enjoy the process (not just the result)

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that most of the time, goal setting is a process used to give us a direction to move in, and rarely does achieving the result give us a happiness boost longer than a day.

Knowing this, it’s important to find ways to really enjoy the process of working towards a particular event or result.

This helps you avoid the “I’ll be happy when…” trap that so many people fall into.

You should also acknowledge that your motivation is a limited resource, and while it might feel very high right now, chances are you might not feel the same way six months down the track.

Consider what strategies you could try to increase the likelihood of reaching your goals, even when you’ve lost motivation or things get tough.

I’d love to hear how you reflect on the year and plan for the next, so drop me a note in the comments below 👇

All the best for your financial future,

Kate

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