Frameworks and Best Practices for 2025 Goal Setting
In my early 20s, I immersed myself in goal setting and thought leadership. I listened to speakers, I read books, I bought CDs (I’m too young for tapes but too old for MP3s) and was influenced by mentors who built their careers and lives around disciplined goal setting. One of my most influential mentors credits the book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill as being a catalyst for his incredible personal and professional success. For nearly a decade, I was a student of goal setting.
But I wasn’t an outstanding student.
Intellectually, I understood the power of setting goals, but with full transparency, I’ll admit I was a goal-setting failure (and I never did finish the book, Think and Grow Rich).
I rarely set goals. If I did, I didn’t stick to them. If I did happen to stick to them, they didn’t seem to create a meaningful impact in my life. I became…. Anti-goal setting (with a caveat at the end of this Fit Tip). To be clear, I didn’t lack motivation. I was excited about working hard, I generally wasn’t complacent, and I tended to be action oriented. But to be clear, goals were not working for me.
This changed for me in 2014. I attended a 3-hour workshop delivered by Bill Hawfield, a speaker and consultant who shared a simple but powerful approach to goal setting. For 10 years, I’ve used his approach to set goals in nearly all categories of my life. Here is the approach in a nutshell:
Utilize a large, tri-fold piece of cardboard (so it has three sections) – Like this: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Pen-Gear-White-Tri-Fold-Cardboard-Project-Display-Board-28-x-40/912894846?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=0
On the upper left-hand corner, apply a Post-it that says, “Your name 2025 Success” (mine says “Luke’s 2025 Success). This represents the column of elements that define success for you. Pick 3-6 words that define success to you; then put each word on a Post-it so you now have a column extending down under “Your name 2025 success.” These are generally “feeling” words, and they might include challenged, peaceful, freedom, fun, secure, family, wealthy, organized, for example. This is your short description of a successful life (or at least, for 2025).
Across the top, include the Avenues for Success. You’ll write one post-it for each avenue (these become column headers). These Avenues for Success might include Family, Money, Work, Personal Development, Spiritual, Learning, and Fitness – essentially all the avenues that you’ll be pursuing success through.
The far-right column header should be labeled “90-Day Action.”
Under each column header, add measurable annual goals (one Post-it for each annual goal). Important Note: These Post-its/goals do NOT align with the Post-its that are in the first column on the far left (this first column represents what success means to you). The Post-its should be viewed vertically as a column.
Under the “90-Day Action” include your goals for the next Quarter. What do you need to do in the next 90 days to achieve the annual goal on the board.
Lastly, take a marker and place a dot on the 3 annual goals that are most important to you for the year.
Image here: https://www.discoverstrength.com/s/goal-board.png
The strengths of this approach:
You get to decide what success looks like to you. And, of course, this can change over the course of one’s life.
You set goals for all of the key areas of your life (not simply professional goals). Done well, we continue to develop as a well-rounded person (and of course, we get to decide what well rounded means for us).
It’s visual, you can see it daily.
My best practices over 10 years of doing this:
Include process and outcome goals. An outcome goal is: “Run a 4-hour marathon.” A process goal is “Run a minimum of 3 times per week for the 6 months leading up to the Chicago marathon.”
If the process goal no longer serves you because the process is now engrained in your life, don’t add it to the board. For example, 8 years ago, I was scared (I was very apprehensive) to do a Bod Pod assessment (I did about 1-2 per year). I created a process goal to overcome this. My process goal was to perform a Bod Pod test once per month for the entire year. Fast forward 8 years, and I now do a Bod Pod test approximately 42-45 times per year (almost once per week). I no longer fear the Bod Pod, and I no longer need a goal of how often I’m going to perform a Bod Pod; it’s become a part of my life and routine.
Exception to the last bullet point: If it’s really important to you, you should still put it on your goal board. For example, one of my Avenues for Success is “Learning.” Under that column, I state all of my learning activities for the upcoming year. They might be the same that I do every year, but they are important, so I still include them. My 2023 learning activities were: Read 25 books; read for 3 hours every Saturday; Vistage Peer Executive Group Membership; student of the Strategic Coach program; earn my “Certified Franchise Executive” certification; complete one course on Microsoft Excel. For the last 10 years, one of my annual learning process goals has been to read 3 hours every Saturday; it’s engrained into my life, but I choose to continue to put it on the goal board. Again, this decision is up to you.
I’ve met many colleagues who turn this into a PowerPoint and simply save it on their computer. For me, I like to use the old-fashion cardboard because it’s a constant visual reminder.
A final tip on goal setting for 2025:
Avoid the “Gap” and embrace the “Gain.”
Dan Sullivan, the founder of Strategic Coach, is famous for impacting the thinking of thousands of entrepreneurial leaders (more specifically, he’s known for teaching others how to think about their own thinking). One of the profound thinking tools that Sullivan teaches is “The Gap and the Gain.”
For decades, Sullivan observed that entrepreneurs (and human beings in general) make so much progress in various areas of their lives, yet, they continue to be unsatisfied or even unhappy with their progress. He refers to this as the “Gap.” The Gap can be defined as measuring from where you currently are at this moment to where you could be in the distant future (the horizon). You will always feel like you’ve never made progress because the horizon (in this case, a person’s ideals) will never be met. Gap thinking involves measuring from a specific (where you are now) to the general (an ideal in the future). This concept has broad application and could apply to having a great marriage, cultivating a successful career, becoming wealthy, and of course, improving our fitness. These ideals are very hard to achieve and thus, most people remain unsatisfied. Sullivan states that when you measure with Gap thinking, you simply can’t be happy or feel fulfilled. You feel like you have accomplished nothing because the ideal remains in the distance. We’ve all been in the Gap.
The alternative to Gap thinking is Gain thinking. Instead of measuring from where you currently are to an ideal (the horizon), he counsels you to measure from where you have been to where you currently are. Gain thinking involves measuring from a specific (where you were) to a specific (where you are now).
Gain thinking is a great way to drive our motivation for our exercise (and all of our health habits). Always measure from where you are now, backward to where you started. Acknowledge how far you’ve come and let this fuel your motivation and confidence to move forward (always inspired by your ideals, but not measuring against your ideals). We can apply this to our exercise outcomes (blood pressure, body composition, muscle strength, 5k time) or our habits (eight hours of sleep on average from a previous seven hours; two workouts per week over the last year versus a previous average of one per week).
Take Action: As you set 2025 goals, make them measurable; be very clear about where you are right now. Then, as each quarter passes and as we draw near the end of 2025, you’ll be able to see significant progress. This progress is evidence of your growing competence and competence fuels confidence.
Hypothetical Examples:
Instead of “Prioritize my strength training” as the goal, consider: I strength trained 48 times in 2024. In 2025, I will strength train 100 times. The goal could be written as: From X to Y by the end of 2025. From 48 workouts to 100 workouts by the end of 2025.
Instead of “Prioritize my cardiorespiratory health and fitness” as the goal, consider: I currently perform a cardio interval workout once per month (on average). In 2025, I will average one per week. Goal written as: From 0.25 interval sessions per week to 1.0 interval sessions per week.
Instead of “Get lean!” as the goal, consider: My current Bod Pod is 32%. In 2025, I will achieve and maintain 27%. Goal written as: From 32% to 27%.
An example of a goal that will inevitably lead to “gap” thinking is: “Improve my relationship with my spouse.” At the end of the year, you will measure from where you currently are to an ideal in the future, and your relationship will never measure up to that ideal. Instead, pick a few things that you can measure. For example: Schedule 12 dedicated date nights in 2025. At the end of the year, you can look back and see progress toward making the depth and quality of your relationship a priority.
Major Caveat: The above applies to goals in nearly every aspect of our personal and professional lives. However, I’m an advocate of a different approach of setting simple, clear, and measurable goals for a business/organization (beyond the scope of this Fit Tip!).
