Setting Goals for the New Year

By Alicia Ortman

I believe in your ability to make 2025 the year you will progress on that goal or dream in your heart. You are capable, you have a vision for your life, and setting a goal will help you achieve it. Goal setting leads you on a growth journey to become someone who learns new skills and habits to achieve something new.

I remember New Year’s Day of 2019 so vividly. On January 1st, my husband and I were in Florence, SC, and we took our then-toddler daughter to a park nearby. We snapped a selfie there, and I remember thinking to myself at that moment, this year WILL be different. I was determined to live life with more intention and joy rather than “just get through the days.” I didn’t know how I would make 2019 different, but I did know that I would have to take different actions to yield a new result. I did that by setting a goal to run a half marathon with no running experience. Why? I wanted to feel better in my body and mind and show up better as a wife and Mama.

My first goal was to run one mile non-stop. I kept adding to that one-mile goal, increasing my mileage over time. When I hit running five miles without walking, I could feel my energy and mindset shift to accomplishing that huge thirteen-mile goal. I never could have foreseen how running 13.1 miles that October would be the catalyst for how I began to evolve.

Setting goals for success for the New Year is more than writing down a bunch of goals. You must feel deeply connected to your desired outcome so that not pursuing the goal outweighs the barriers or limiting beliefs that will come up.

In 2025, let’s make a promise to each other that we are going to approach goal setting differently. Think of goal setting as a layered process. The first layer is setting the goal for the New Year with a strong desire to feel more fulfilled in your life.

The second layer is determining what new habits and routines will be required to attain your goal. There will be discomfort in this layer. New learning requires letting go of what doesn’t support the goal. This is the Messy Middle of goal setting and typically where goals can start to fall apart. Don’t let this be you in February!

The next layer is where you gain momentum with your goal. You can sense a difference in yourself, you’ve made progress and become more confident that you are living more aligned with your core values.

Then you achieve the goal! You feel confident and proud of yourself, and this is where you celebrate all the growth you worked so hard to achieve! You maintain your progress by maintaining your new habits and routines as they are a part of you now. Let’s work together to set your New Year’s goal and break it down into manageable pieces.

Answer questions such as:

When will your goal be completed?
What are three milestones your goal can be broken down into?
What action steps are required under each milestone?
What new skills will you learn?
What habits will you implement?
Who will support you and hold you accountable?
How will you celebrate each milestone win?

Each goal you set should follow the SMART goal formula. Make your goal SPECIFIC. Make it MEASUREABLE. Make your goal ATTAINABLE. Make sure it is RELEVANT to your life. And make it TIMELY. A goal without a deadline is just a dream.

Goal progress takes time. I didn’t run that half marathon in a week. I ran it with consistent efforts over several months. During those months, I had to learn new skills. I learned to eat foods that would fuel my body. I learned that sprinting randomly would get you side stitches and not make you faster. I learned about proper running shoes and form. And I learned not to change anything on race day (the hard way, I might add!).

Writing your goals down is a level of self-accountability and increases the likelihood you will work on them by 42%. I encourage you to look at your list of goal(s) often, checking off accomplished goals to see your growth. I find goal reflection so special: remembering I was once a woman with those goals, and now, I am a woman with these new goals.

I coach women to set and achieve goals to live more fulfilled lives. What ONE goal can you set for the New Year that will be the catalyst of growth in your life?