How do you usually go about setting goals for the New Year?

During this time between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, I usually take a little time to reflect. This year, I took a more intentional approach by sitting down with my calendar to help me go back and review my major projects, events, and activities in 2024. Once you have your list together, ask yourself these questions:

Reflection Exercise: Looking Back

1. What achievement are you most proud of? How did you accomplish it?
2. What was the most meaningful contribution you made at work? in your relationships? in your community?
3. How have you grown this past year, both professionally and personally?
4. What/Who are you thankful for this year?

For a faith-based approach to this exercise, here is a powerful question I came across in my Lectio 365 devotional app: What has God done for you, in you, and through you this past year?

Reflection Exercise: Looking Forward

As you begin to look forward to 2025, here are a couple of pitfalls to avoid:

Pitfall #1: Choosing a weakness or problem area to work on.

If you focus on a weakness, you are more likely to one of those people who abandon your New Year’s Resolution by February, if not sooner. And even if you do manage to hang in there longer, you are only likely to achieve mediocre results. We are more likely to achieve excellence when we further develop things we are already (often naturally) good at (see Gallup’s research). So, I encourage you to come up with a goal that allows you to: use your strengths, do things that interest/excite you, give you energy, and align with your most important values. Think of something you are already good at. How might you get even better at it? How would that help you become an even better version of who you already are?

Pitfall #2: Adding something to your plate without also removing something that is no longer serving you.

Time is a limited resource. Refer back to your list of activities in 2024 and consider the following questions:

1. What is something that you want to stop doing, or do less of?
2. What is something that you want to continue doing?
3. What is something you want to start doing, or do more of?

Now you are ready to create your goal(s) for the New Year. For the strengths-based goal you have in mind, ask yourself this question: What would one percent better each day look like?

Think about it: 40-50% of what we do on any given day is based on habit. By having the right habits in place, you are more likely to be successful in meeting your goal. Here are some tips on building habits:

1. Focus on the process, not the outcome.

• • Specify what you are going to do and when you are going to do it. Taking this step alone will increase your chance of following through from 38% to 91%!
  • Track your behavior. Simply tracking our behavior can make us more likely to increase the frequency of it. If you are regularly engaging in an effective behavior, the results will take care of themselves.
  • Build in accountability. Write down your goal, share it with others, and find an accountability partner.

2. Focus on small changes and consistency.

• • Just show up. Take the first step – an activity that only takes two minutes. Often just getting started is the biggest hurdle.
  • Never miss twice. Focus on repetition, not perfection.

See James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits, for more tips like these to help set you up for success in reaching your goal(s) in 2025.