Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas with your family and friends, and I hope you’re feeling refreshed and ready for a big 2025!

Thank you to everyone for your feedback on my December newsletter. It certainly struck a chord with many of you, and so this month, I have decided to expand on setting goals with intention.

Why New Year’s resolutions don’t work

If you have set a New Year’s resolution, you may want to reconsider it. For most people, they simply don’t work. In fact, research shows that 35% of people who set New Year’s resolutions abandon them within a week.

Why? Well, for most people, they get all excited about the new year, and forget that a year consists of 12 months, 52 weeks and 365 days. It’s why gyms make most of their money in January. People have a goal to get fit. They get all hyped up, sign up for an expensive gym membership, and forget that fitness is about consistency and habits. By the time February comes around, they are back in their normal routine and their fitness goal has been completely forgotten about.

Setting goals with intention

We are goal driven beings. It’s what allows us to stay focused so that we can work towards achieving our life dreams. However, we tend to overestimate what we can achieve in one year, and underestimate what we can achieve in three years.

Setting goals with intention means that we are setting goals that we can clearly define, that we can measure, and that have a time frame associated with them. Anyone can say that they want to be a millionaire. Or that they want to travel the world. But these are pipe dreams that most people never actually achieve.

Being intentional about why you want to achieve your goals and how you’re going to get there is far more important. Having a million dollars will most likely not make you any happier. Travelling the world may be fun, but sharing your experiences with the people you love is really what it’s all about.

Start to get clear on why you want to achieve your goals. Focus on who you want to become rather than what you want to do. Prioritise your most important goal and set your other goals to help you achieve it.

Write your goals down

Research shows that you are 42% more likely to achieve your goals if you write them down. Writing your goals down helps to increase your clarity and focus, which makes you more likely to achieve your goals. You don’t have to get your goals perfect straight away. You can refine them as you go, but spending 30 minutes to write them down will greatly increase your chances of achieving them.

I have my goals written in a Word document on my computer so that I can constantly refer to them and refine them as I go. Other people like to write them in a dairy or on their phone. Some people write them on a piece of paper and place them on the fridge where they can see them everyday. Do what works for you. But make sure that they are visible and seen regularly.

Set SMART goals

You may have heard of SMART goals. It is a very common method that helps you develop clearly defined goals that are based in reality. These are the type of goals that I set. SMART stands for the following:

• S: Specific - Getting specific helps to narrow your focus in that particular direction and get clear on what you’re trying to achieve.

• M: Measurable - Quantifying your goals allows you to track your progress to make sure that you’re on track to achieve your goals, or to pivot in a different direction if required.

• A: Achievable - Your goals should be realistic. Short-term goals should be more realistic than long-term goals. You don’t need to know how you are going to achieve your goals, but making them too far-fetched will decrease motivation and make them harder to achieve.

• R: Relevant - This is where you need to think about the big picture. Why are you setting the goals that you’re setting? What is it that you’re really trying to achieve? As I mentioned, think about who you want to become more so than what you want to do.

• T: Time-Bound - This one is very important. To properly measure your success, you need to have a realistic timeline in place. This may be three months, 12 months or three years depending on what type of goal you are setting.

How I set my goals

As I mentioned in my previous newsletter, I have my one goal, which is the most important goal in my life. From here, I have life goals, three year goals, 12 month goals, three month goals and one month goals. My one month goals help me achieve my three month goals. My three month goals help me achieve my 12 month goals. And so on and so on.

When I write a goal, I write it as if I have already achieved it and by the date that I want to achieve it. If you remember, one of my goals for next year is to get married to my fiancee Hafi. When writing this as a goal, I would write it the following way…

“I am married to Hafi by the 31st of December 2025.”

Now I’m not saying this is the only way to write your goals, but this is what works for me. It is specific (getting married to Hafi), it it measurable (being married), it is achievable (we are engaged), it is relevant (one of my life goals), and it is time-bound (by the end of next year). It’s important that you find what works for you.

Make 2025 your best year yet

We don’t always achieve all of our goals. In fact, if you do, you are not setting hard enough goals for yourself. Push yourself. Set the bar high. If you really want something, break it down into actionable goals and set about achieving it. If things don’t go to plan, that’s okay to. Step back, reassess and start again. If you set a goal and then realise that it’s not what you want, that’s also okay. We don’t always get everything right. We don’t always know exactly what we want. Be kind to yourself. And remember to go after what you want because you deserve it!