We are approaching the time when millions make resolutions and goals for the new year. That arbitrary turning of the calendar marks a time of new beginnings. What follows is often failure.
If you set goals – getting healthy, finding a new career, learning your purpose – without a plan, your probability of failure is quite high. It’s not enough for most people to say, “I’m going to do it” and poof, your goal manifests amazing success. You need a plan.
Your plan should start with a Past Year Review. You can’t move forward without first looking back. Tim Ferriss describes one approach to accomplish this (and see a similar approach from Sienna Colonese):
- Grab a notepad and create two columns: POSITIVE and NEGATIVE.
- Go through your calendar from the last year, looking at every week.
- For each week, jot down on the pad any people or activities or commitments that triggered peak positive or negative emotions for that month.
- Look at your list and ask, “What 20% of each column produced the most reliable or powerful peaks?”
- Based on the answers, take your “positive” leaders and schedule more of them in the new year. Get them on the calendar now! [Or as Neah of Neah’s Way speaks to, what activities will let you experience awe again like when you were a child?] Book things with friends and prepay for activities/events/commitments that you know work. It’s not real until it’s in the calendar. That’s step one. Step two is to take your “negative” leaders, put “NOT-TO-DO LIST” at the top. These are the people and things you know make you miserable, so don’t put them on your calendar out of obligation, guilt, FOMO, or other nonsense.
Next, use the findings of your Past Year Review of 2024 and set your Objectives for 2025. Most of this is a summary of of Ryan Michler’s plan in Sovereignty, which goes into much more detail.
- Pick a timescale. Here we will use 12 week Objectives.
- Employ Specificity, that is, don’t say “I want to be healthy.” Rather, describe what exactly healthy means for you, and what metrics you will use to get there. Don’t think small. Neah says ask yourself, “Who do I want to become? What do I want to become? What motivates me?” Then, “What happens if I don’t do this?”
- Use the Four Quadrants to define your Objectives:
- Calibration: Take care of your well-being first, particularly things that are getting in the way of your Objectives, including mindset, and mental and emotional health.
- Connection: How do your Objectives improve relationships with all the people you interact with?
- Condition: This is focus on your physical health. Your health can no longer be an afterthought. Being sick or dead will interfere with your Objectives.
- Contribution: How do your Objectives make an impact on other people?
Defining your Objectives with this level of Specificity is half the battle. This isn’t set it and forget it. You need Tactics that help you stay on the correct route to achieving your Objectives.
- Set thirty and sixty day checkpoints.
- Review your objectives at these times and make necessary adjustments.
- Define two additional Tactics for each Objective. For example, if you want to read six books in ninety days:
Primary Tactic: Read for thirty minutes every day.
Secondary Tactic: Read for two hours every weekend.
One of your most important Tactics is the After Action Review. This doesn’t just come at the end of the Objective period. Use this after a project, after difficult conversations, and especially at the end of every day. It only takes a few minutes to ask these questions:
- What did I accomplish?
- What did I not accomplish?
- What did I do well?
- What did I not do well?
- What will I do moving forward?
Get yourself an old-fashioned notebook or journal, or a device if you must, and skip mindless New Year’s resolutions. Take control of your life. No more letting others push and pull you along. Don’t wait until December 31st. Use the whole month.
Make 2025 the year you Find Your Purpose, Find Your Story.
Darrick Dean 