Before you make your 2025 goals, try following this process.
Today, I want you to do something that many people advise against. I want you to look back.
You can keep your vision focused on the future, but I also know that our past has the power to teach us great lessons.
I want you to think about 2024. I am sure, like most people, you made some resolutions. Go back and remind yourself of what you committed to for this past year.
Now, it’s time for step 1: I want you to end the year by celebrating every single one of your successes, no matter how small.
If you wanted to add muscle this year, and you grew a few cm’s, celebrate. If you wanted to read more, and you read for 5 minutes a day, celebrate.
Tally up every single one of your wins. This is the exciting part. It might feel like bragging. Don’t get held up on that feeling of pride. Celebrating your little wins is the fuel that will keep you moving forward!
Step 2 is a little challenging. I want you to look at the goals where you fell short. This requires being real with yourself.
Did you want to break your addiction to screens and keep your eyes on the real world? If you didn’t succeed, ignoring the fact won’t help you.
Did you want to make training twice weekly a habit, but you just couldn’t keep it going after your lost interest a few weeks into the year? Be truthful.
Did you want to improve your language skills, spend more time with your family, see friends more often, or cook most meals at home, and you just don’t feel like you did what you planned so boldly last January?
Be real. You know what didn’t stick. Hiding these failures won’t help you feel better for long. Admitting it and moving on to step 3 will.
Step 3 is figuring out why you fell short. Here are some ideas:
First, did you have a very clear vision? I don’t mean saying, “I want to be the kind of person who runs around with their kids.”
It is important to know who you want to be, but if you don’t know why, and if you don’t visualise it, it won’t happen.
Did you imagine yourself feeling fit and doing all of the things that cause you discomfort now or cause you to run out of breath and stop?
You need to see it, in your mind, like a movie.
That goal needs a real vision, so real that it could almost be a memory — only it’s one that hasn’t happened yet.
Second, I want you to ask yourself if you made a S.M.A.R.T. goal
A goal can’t be achieved without a solid plan to do the work. Wishes are not strategies. SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time bound.
It feels reasonable to say, “I will train every day for half an hour,” but when you haven’t had that kind of routine for years, or ever before, it might keep you going for a month or two before motivation runs out and you end up like all of the people who fail to accomplish their New Year’s resolutions.
“I will resistance train my full body 2 days a week and do yoga, or go for walks or bike rides every day I don’t train” is much more realistic. Solidify this goal by making it time bond and you will have a real plan!
"I will do this for three months and then reevaluate my goal”
You need to create accessible daily actions to fill in your plan.
This is a lesson gym rats know very well. You don’t just go deadlift 500 pounds. You deadlift the bar with 10’s. You slowly build up. Then you deadlift 135 pounds. One day, and it might be a year or several years, you deadlift 225 pounds. Eventually, if you never stop after thousands of failures, you see that 500 pounds lift.
That’s the power of progression. You can have a big vision, but if you don’t install a solid staircase on the way up the muddy cliff to that vision, you’re going to lose traction and slide down.
You have to start with small wins. Success breeds success. Achieving 10 strict push ups starts with one wall push up. Reading a book starts with one page. A marathon starts with one step.
Your confidence builds with every small victory.
And that’s why, for step 4, I want to ask if you gave yourself credit for those small wins.
I see so many people who consistently show up to their classes, but have frequent illnesses, get frustrated and say, “I’m not consistent.”
Yes, you are. You keep going despite all of your setbacks. If you look at all the workouts you accomplished in a year, nobody would call that a failure.
So why are you zooming in and seeing that one week off sick as not enough instead of zooming out and celebrating your wins?
Negativity will kill results, over and over.
Progress takes time and resources. I know how easy it is to see other people who are fit and assume that it happened overnight, that they have better genetics, and that they never got hurt or ill.
That’s BS. I know that’s how a lot of people pretend on social media, but anyone you see who is shredded or strong did it one step at a time and had many times where they took steps backward.
The difference between success and failure is the will to get up and keep trying after taking a step backward.
You need to get in the habit of celebrating the small wins, then the weekly wins, then the bigger wins. Make ‘Celebrate’ your middle name.
Combined with a clear SMART goal and a real plan, that is how you will make 2025 your best year yet.
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