Plan Your Year | Goal-Setting Process📝.
steal my process. I know I am the gift that keeps giving.
Thinking about how the next 365 days will unfold can feel overwhelming. I’m not really a “new year, new me” person, but the endless possibilities of a fresh start excite me. I love stepping into a new year with intention—that’s why I plan mine.
In this edition, I’ll share how to set new year’s goals and build the systems that make achieving them possible.
I am also a little bit scared about 2025. Honestly, I did not get much done in 2024, and it broke me. If you are also scared of the new year, I hope this process provides clarity and comfort.
If you haven’t yet reflected on your year and need guidance on beginning, I shared my year-in-review process, which I believe you'll find helpful.
Ready? Let’s begin.
📝Begin by setting the theme for 2025: Choose a word, concept, or sentence that represents the energy, mindset, or direction you want to cultivate in the new year. This theme will guide your decisions, plans, and attitudes. For example:
1. “Consistency” – to approach every goal steadily,
2. “Peace” – to prioritize mental and emotional well-being,
3. “Growth” – to continually challenge yourself and learn,
4. “Abundance” – to welcome positivity and opportunities into your life,
5. “Intentional Rest.”
N.B: if you struggle with coming up with a theme. You should use ChatGPT/ any AI of your choice. Explain how you want your year to look like and ask for theme suggestions.
Start small and go from there. I believe in starting with tiny habits (1% growth daily).
📝Next, create goals and systems for 2025: Determine the life areas (pillars) you want to focus on in the coming year. Common pillars include career, finance, health, and personal (or others that matter to you, like relationships, education, or creativity).
📝Then, within each pillar, set a specific goal or goals For example:
- Career Goal: Earn a promotion by Q3.
- Financial Goal: Increase savings by $5,000 by the end of Q3.
- Creativity Goal: Learn how to pole dance or read one non-fiction book per month.
- Personal Goal: Learn Public Speaking.
- Spiritual Goal: Read the entire Bible by November 2025.
- Health Goal: Exercise at least three times a week.
📝You definitely want to build systems with your goals: Building systems with goals means creating consistent habits, routines, and structures that support achieving your goals daily. In other words, instead of relying on motivation alone, you set up practical processes and frameworks that make moving toward your goal easier. Examples:
- Personal Development Goal: read 2 books every month.
Systems: scheduling 15 minutes of reading every night before bed, and keeping your book or e-reader in a dedicated spot (like a bedside table) to reduce friction and ensure consistency.
- Health Goal: workout for 1hr everyday:
Systems: lay out your workout clothes the night before, setting a specific workout time in your calendar, and having a planned routine ready so you don’t waste time deciding what to do.
- Finance Goal: Increase savings by $5,000 by Q3.
Systems: Automate monthly transfers to a savings account, review your budget every Sunday, and track expenses with a budgeting app.
N.B.: If this is your first time building systems with your goals, I will recommend starting small, keeping your systems stupid simple, focusing on being consistent instead of perfect, and reviewing and adjusting your systems as regularly as possible.
📝 Finally, only if you want to, when you have fleshed out your goals and systems, answer these questions for each pillar of your goals:
1. Why do I want to achieve this goal?
2. What are the consistent SMART goals I must implement to achieve my goal
3. What habits do I need to adapt into my daily routine to achieve this goal?
4. How surprised will I be if I don’t achieve the goal?
5. What will be the reasons for not achieving this goal?
6. Who can help me achieve this goal? Accountability partners.
7. How can I stack the deck to succeed in this goal?
"Do not just set goals, build systems." -James Clear.
I answered the above questions and thought to share my answers with you:
Pillar: Personal Development
Goal: Learn Public Speaking
1. Why do I want to learn public speaking?
I want to learn public speaking because it will help me communicate more confidently, articulate my ideas clearly, and expand my influence in personal and professional settings. Improving this skill can open new opportunities for leadership roles and presentations at work and make a more memorable impact when sharing my viewpoints.
2. What consistent SMART goals must I implement to achieve my goal?
- Complete a beginner’s public speaking course or workshop within 2 months.
- Give at least one short presentation to a friend or family member every week for the next 12 weeks.
- Join a local Toastmasters club and attend at least one monthly meeting for the next 6 months.
- Record and review myself, presenting at least twice a month, assessing progress and improvement areas.
3. What habits do I need to adapt into my daily routine to achieve this goal?
- Spend 15 minutes each day practicing spoken affirmations or short speeches in front of a mirror.
- Read aloud a short passage from a book or an article daily to improve voice projection and pacing.
- Watch a short TED talk or professional presentation daily to learn techniques from experienced speakers.
4. How surprised will I be if I don’t achieve the goal?
I’d be somewhat surprised and disappointed if I didn’t improve my public speaking abilities, given my planned effort and structured approach. I’m anticipating steady progress, so failing to improve would indicate a need to rethink my strategies.
5. What will be the reasons for not achieving this goal?
- Not consistently practicing the outlined daily habits.
- Avoiding situations that allow me to speak publicly due to fear or discomfort.
- Lack of feedback or not actively seeking constructive criticism.
- Giving up too soon after initial setbacks or nervous presentations.
6. Who can help me achieve this goal? Accountability partners.
- A friend or colleague who can listen to my practice speeches and offer honest feedback.
- A mentor or a more experienced speaker from a local speaking club.
- Members of a Toastmasters group who can provide structured evaluations and encouragement.
7. How can I stack the deck to succeed in this goal?
- Schedule regular speaking practice sessions into my calendar and treat them like non-negotiable appointments.
- Set up a comfortable, quiet space for recording myself and reviewing my performances.
- Keep a journal to track improvements, note feedback, and celebrate small wins (like completing a course or delivering a successful short speech).
- Gradually increase the challenge level—start by speaking to one friend, then a small group of friends, then a work meeting, and so on.
If you can, please read Atomic Habits by James Clear.
👩🏾💻Anoma’s interesting things:
🍨A little treat for you. I get a lot of questions on where to find Notion Templates. Here are some that I hope you enjoy:
https://www.notion.so/templates/minimalist-annual-review-and-reset
https://www.notion.so/help/guides/the-only-notion-setup-you-need-for-keeping-new-years-resolutions
https://www.notion.so/2019-Year-in-Review-58d8d66ac8594ae18556153f1fbaa002
📖My friend Ifoghale sent me this article on someone’s experience with meeting Luigi Mangione:
I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. The part of the article that altered my brain chemistry was their conversation on “intergenerational trauma.” I have always believed that trauma can be passed from one generation to another, often skipping one to the other, but it seems that “the idea that trauma is passed down epigenetically is not only unscientific, it is also un-agentic.” I love it when a belief or opinion that I have gets challenged, so this is very interesting and definitely food for further thought for me.
📽️ “Do hard things” is one of my mantras for 2025. I am not sure I can explain how this video makes me feel so please watch it. I am also slightly sad that I just stumbled on CaseyNeistat’s YouTube channel. They are such a creative genius and also so f inspiring. This video is my video of the month, and it may be in January 2025. I hope you enjoy it.
If you've made it this far in this lengthy af article, wow! Thank you very much. I truly hope you enjoyed reading and gained a couple of insights.
Well done Anoma, this was a good read. I'm up to support your public speaking goal. Let me know when you need me to listen to you present/speak, feel free to also share recorded videos for feedback.
P.S: I intend to get better at my reading and writing this year, not sure where this fits in in my comment but I hope to get as much help as I can access, yup
Inspiring read.