It’s a new year. January 1st doesn’t magically erase your challenges and present you with a blank canvas to work with when it comes to your hopes, dreams, and habits. It does however provide you with an opportunity to reevaluate what is working in your life, and (equally important) what isn’t. You can reimagine what is possible for you this coming year, and create goals you’d like to achieve and habits you are ready to form.
Here’s some practices to not only set meaningful goals for yourself this year, but to be led and empowered by the Holy Spirit and become more like Jesus in 2025 as you anchor your heart in hope:
1. Pray and ask the Lord to give you direction for this coming year.
Want to make more money this year? Want to travel more often? Want to get back into going to the gym? Want to increase revenue for your business by 25%? Great. These are all phenomenal goals, but before you commit to a set of ambitions for the year, pray. Seek the Lord through prayer and fasting, and ask Him to direct your priorities for the year. You may be surprised at what God reveals to you when you choose to seek Him first.
If you want your plans to be blessed by the Lord, make sure your plans are led by the Lord.
2. Get clear on your motives.
When you set your goals, the what matters, but so does the why. Be clear on why your goals are so important and the impact they will have in your life, your faith, your family, and your future. Know what is at stake if you don’t commit to these goals– whether that be an achievement goal or a habit-forming goal. Your goals need to be more than a nice idea; they need a strong purpose and urgency fueling them.
3. Have a plan for when you want to give up.
Yep, that’s right. You will want to give up. There will be days when you just don’t feel like waking up early. There will be challenges that will leave you questioning whether or not your goals are achievable. There will be setbacks that will tempt you to throw in the towel on the habits you would like to form and the projects you would like to finish.
Have a plan for the bad days, not just the good days. Think through what you will do and/or who you will reach out to when the going gets tough. Not every day will be smooth sailing, but by God’s grace you can endure and persevere.
4. Schedule your commitment to your goals.
Your goals need a plan, and that will inevitably involve your time. So make sure that your daily schedules, as well as your weekly and monthly calendars, reflect the time and effort to achieve your goals. Until you dedicate the necessary time to your goals– whether that be 20 minutes each day in the morning or 2 hours of your work-week every Thursday or a week set aside in the summer– your goals will never become your new reality.
5. Create weekly and monthly check-ins with yourself.
All plans need improvement along the way. By creating a time every week and month for you to review your goals, you can take a fresh look at your progress and make the adjustments needed to continue to gain traction towards your goals. I highly recommend journaling at the end of each week and month with your goals in front of you. In only 15-20 minutes, you can learn important lessons and gain needed perspective and focus. I use the Full Focus Planner, and find the prompts incredibly helpful and insightful.
6. Ask for help.
Sometimes, we keep our goals all to ourselves for fear of what others might think or not wanting to fail publicly if we aren’t able to achieve our aspirations. I get it, I’ve been guilty of this plenty of times. But without sharing our goals with those we love and trust, and relying on others, we rarely hit our goals… and if we do, we often cross the finish line exhausted and dissatisfied.
Think through who can support you and/or share your goals. Join the gym with your bestie. Change your dietary habits as a family. Figure out how to collaborate with your coworkers to accomplish a major work initiative. FaceTime once a week with your friend to share what you’ve been reading in the Bible.
Don’t go it alone. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness but of wisdom.
7. Celebrate your progress along the way.
Track your progress and celebrate the milestones as they come. Did you workout 5 times a week for a month straight? That’s amazing! Go out to dinner with your friends to commemorate. Did you finish the book proposal and submit it to a few different publishers? You may not have a finished book in your hands quite yet, but you completed a major step towards becoming a published author, and that’s worth sharing and praising God with your family.
Don’t wait until the goal is completed to acknowledge your hard work and dedication. And certainly don’t forget to thank God along the way for His blessing, grace and strength at work in your life. Thank Jesus for the strides forward you are seeing, and celebrate progress over perfection.