Evaluate, Plan, Succeed

Shortly after midnight last night, a friend asked what my goals are for the year. And while I have been giving it thought over the past few days, I didn’t want to define my 2025 goals until I looked back at my 2024 goals and assessed how well I accomplished them. Afterall, I figured they and my performance against them would likely shape my upcoming goals.

Here’s a simplified version of my goals (see Push yourself, don’t stress yourself | Shannon Crone for the original post) – First and most importantly, I wanted to be a better human. Secondly, I wanted to enjoy life more. Lastly, I wanted to get my run back.

I’m proud of how I did against these goals:

Goal 1 – Better Human: I am most pleased with how thoughtful I’ve been when making decisions, taking action and speaking to others. This goal certainly felt overwhelming at the start of 2024, but I found that by taking small actions, I was able to make progress on the goal. I channeled the “tiny change” concept in James Clear’s book “Atomic Habits” to bolster my confidence that even small, positive changes were building good habits. I liked this goal so much I’m morphing it a bit but keeping it part of my goals for 2025.

Goal 2 – Enjoy Life More: I’m also very proud of the actions I took to enjoy life more. Knowing I wasn’t just going to start handling challenges and whatever life threw my way perfectly, I listened to multiple books on the topic. My favorites were “Stop & Shift” by Karen Allen and “The Energy Bus” by Jon Gordon. Both focus on the mental training we can (and should) be doing to stop the negative thought spirals we can so easily fall into when facing challenges and shift to thoughts and actions that are more positive. It wasn’t effortless to begin the process, however, I’ve learned that starting the practice is a great first step and each subsequent action becomes less difficult. Similar to the first goal, I liked this one and have seen such benefits from it, so it will remain on my list for 2025.

Goal 3 – Get my Run Back: Nailed it! My race pace improved, I ran a solid half marathon at the end of my IM 70.3 Louisville and another Boston qualifier at the Marine Corps Marathon in October, and I’ve learned that even when the run doesn’t feel good to start, I can shift my plan for the pace and/or distance and still enjoy it.

Having completed that lookback at the year, my 2025 goals are to:

1. Be a Kind Human – this is the morphed goal from above. My desire this year is to continue being a kind and supportive person AND encourage others to do the same. The world can be a harsh place, and people are going through so much. Spreading kindness, love and support can make a huge difference to someone. I love the idea of The Kindness Challenge by Adventure Challenge and may use it to support this goal. I hope you’ll add this goal to your list if it’s not already there.
2. Enjoy a Positive Life – also an adaptation of the goal above. I still have room to grow here and is why I’m keeping the goal. I want to continue the mental training to more quickly see the positive in difficult, trying situations. I’m adding one thing to this goal – I would also like to help others make the mental shift transition, so they are also able to better tackle challenges in a positive way.
3. Organize and De-clutter – this is a new goal, but one I think could help contribute to a more positive life. I tend to rush through things in my life, which often causes me to leave things partially complete. This means projects like organizing my garage or basement – it also means things as simple as coming home from work and putting my jewelry in my jewelry cabinet instead of leaving it on top of a dresser…the list goes on and on. I tend to do the easiest thing instead of the perhaps slightly more time-consuming action, even when that action is the right action to keep my life organized and de-cluttered. There are so many benefits to doing this – less mess, less anxiety, fewer chores later in the week – and the immediate action generally is not overly time-consuming. It’s simply taking a task to its full completion. Seems easy to do…with great benefits.

What about you? How did you do against your 2024 goals? What goals will you set for 2025?