Make 2025 about your intentions rather than just goals.
The start of a New Year is always a good time to reflect and set new goals, it’s something I’ve done religiously every year pretty much since I started working as a professional artist (11 years ago now which is crazy!). I also tend to give a little attention to my personal website too to give it a proper refresh. Setting new goals is generally a thing a lot of people do at New Year but people seem to be approaching it a little differently these days and focusing more on setting intentions and the type of person they would like to be, which I personally think is way better.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t set goals at all, I certainly still will be! However, your life is likely to be much more fulfilling if you couple those goals with improving other areas of your life and improving elements of yourself that you’re not happy with (eg. the way you react to certain situations, your level of activity etc.).
I’m going to outline below some of the things I considered when setting out my goals and intentions for the new year along with some examples of what I’m working towards and how I’m tracking them.
What do you want to focus on this year?
This doesn’t need to be goal orientated (although it could be), this is more just a general overview of what you want to really lean into this year. You could do this as a list, a brainstorm, a journal entry, whatever works for you really! One thing I would advise is splitting it into a couple of different categories eg. health, work, personal, wealth and fun. Then you can note down under each category any goals you have, any habits you want to build up, or any intentions you want to work towards.
When you’re doing this it’s useful to keep in mind your bad habits when it comes to setting your goals (if you aren’t sure what these are, it’s a good time to do some reflection!), this way you can ensure to at least try to catch yourself falling into any traps. For example, I always, always set way too many goals that then leave me feeling overwhelmed and paralysed, I also make each goal pretty unachievable for the time I actually have. I leave myself struggling to fit my goals into my spare time rather than being able to work on them comfortably with a bit of extra time to do additional work if I feel like it. So I made sure to drastically lower the amount of goals I set, I was aiming for 12 so that I had 1 goal per month, I have a little over that but some are more passive goals so I felt that was still achievable. I also made sure to condense some goals where possible.
Once you have your list of ideas of what you want to focus on, you don’t then need to add all of them to a goal list for 2025, only do what is manageable but I would advise picking one from each category at least (if you are wanting to hit some goals). Personally I actually found that I picked out way more goals in the “fun” and “health” categories this year than the “work” and “personal (I treat this as personal work)” because I’ve realised how much more full my life is when I’m living it rather than just working all the time. I wanted one of my intentions to be feeling fulfilled in more personal areas of my life and building myself up mentally and physically which is reflected in the types of goals I chose. Having fun experiences and learning things purely for fun has a much greater impact on my personal work too so it all works out!
what kind of person do you want to be?
I personally think this one is a little more difficult and definitely takes some personal reflection to get some answers. I’ve also been reading the book “1001 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think” by Brianna Wiest which has definitely opened my eyes to the way I think about certain things and how I could change that for the better.
They do say that people will remember how you treated them rather than what you did and that’s something I’m definitely taking into 2025. It could just be something as simple as being kinder to people, even in situations where they’re not treating you with kindness. For example to be completely transparent about my own intentions, I know I can get in my own head a lot and spiral downwards, becoming quite negative and complaining a lot. Normally I’ll be fine again after a few days but I really want to get on top of this, I have come to terms with also having health anxiety which has genuinely been quite debilitating at times. So in general I’d like to silence my thoughts more and recognise them as just thoughts whilst also being kinder to others even when I feel negative. If you are intending on setting some intentions for the year, I would advise treating it a little differently to your goals and only have a couple of intentions you’d like to meet. Intentions are more likely to develop through changing your habits and the way you think, there’s only so much you can change at a time when it comes to things like this so don’t overwhelm yourself by trying to change everything about yourself in one year. Take baby steps!
How can you keep track of your goals and intentions? - habit tracker apps etc.
This is a little more tricky as different things will work for everyone although I do think it’s important to do some trial and error with different methods and reflect on the pros and cons. I’ve tried notebooks, goal tracking apps, reminders etc. and now I find I have to use a combination of a few different things in the right way. Previously when I’ve used notebooks for example I’ve spent ages writing down my goals and then not really looked at them until the next year, I’ve used apps and then just not opened them again, ignored reminders etc. I also find that I over plan to the point that every little step is a goal and it becomes overwhelming and I don’t even know where to start.
I now use a combination of a custom Notion set up for my bigger goals (I also do all my writing in Notion, plan projects etc. so everything is in one place) and a small Moleskine notebook that I plan each day out in because it’s easy to pick up and add to when needed. It took me years to figure this out by the way and I’ve still got things to figure out as I go, so don’t assume whatever you do will work. Start somewhere then build up and refine as you go.
Intentions are a little more difficult as you don’t really have anything to tick off, it’s more just a way you’d like to live your life so they would probably have to be something like a daily reminder. Maybe you could set a reminder on your phone, change your phone background to a list of values you want to live by or write out quotes and notes to yourself and stick them above your workspace etc. Creating intentions for yourself are less about hitting specific milestones or the amount of days you’ve continued with something (although they could be) but more of a reminder of how you’d like to start acting and improving yourself. For me I find writing notes to myself and sticking them around my workspace works best, particularly when I’m having a bad day and might distract myself or day dream more because they’re more likely to catch my eye and remind me of what I should be focusing on.
What hobbies could you pick up or what could you learn purely for yourself?
Something I’ve made the mistake of doing is focusing a lot of my learning around improving my artwork or learning new things for work and my only real mode of relaxation has been playing games or watching Youtube.
Anyone that has followed me for a few years might have noticed that I really fell off over the past few years, I used to create a lot more artwork and content in general than I do now. I’m hoping to be a lot more productive this year. However, something I have noticed the past few years and I feel others have too is that there’s more to life than work, especially creative work. Even though I love creating, I find that if I do it too much it becomes more stressful and less fun because I always end up creating expectations for my artwork, I’m not building my visual library and I end up feeling frustrated in my work.
It’s important to learn other skills in your life too, even if it’s just out of interest or to feel more fulfilled. It allows you to have ways to switch off from your work and personal projects, it could help you to approach and think about creative projects differently and it gives you a feeling of accomplishment that you might not be getting from your personal work.
As I’m sure I’ve mentioned on here before I love baking, I find it’s a great way to switch off from work and still have some form of creativity but I have to completely focus on what I’m doing and make sure the ingredients, timing and process is correct. I still love baking and I want to try some more complicated bakes this year but baking every week isn’t exactly great for my health when it needs eating! I’ve been doing a lot of reflection these past few months especially and really trying to think about what I used to enjoy which I’d highly recommend, especially if you feel like you’re not sure what you enjoy anymore. I used to really enjoy playing the electric guitar so re-learning that is one of my goals for the year alongside some other personal, fun goals.
I’ve said this many times on here and mainly because I fall into the trap myself but revolving your whole life, hobbies, learning and free time around your work/personal work isn’t going to give you much balance or leave you feeling fulfilled in the long run. Make sure to try to pick out a couple of things for yourself to dive into this year that are for no other reason that to have some fun! This might not be a direct ‘intention’ as I have listed learning these new hobbies as goals but my intention for that is to have more balance in life and to have other interests I can lean into in my spare time. I’m not just setting goals for the sake of setting goals, I’m always trying to make sure it fulfils an intention for myself at the same time.
One final takeaway. Remember, you don’t actually need to set out to achieve anything any year. Experiencing life as it is and living in the moment is one of the best things you can do.