Happy New Year!
A brand-new year means fresh opportunities to design a life and business that truly align with your values and dreams.
In this episode, I explore six intentional strategies to kick off 2025 with clarity and purpose. Whether you’ve struggled with setting meaningful goals or keeping your momentum, I’ll guide you through a proven framework to reflect, reset, and plan for the year effectively.
I’ll share how choosing one powerful word for the year can transform your decisions and focus.
If you’re ready to make this year your best yet, grab a notebook and tune in.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL DISCOVER:
- How to set yourself up for success in 2025 (00:33)
- The practice that helps you reflect, reset, and move forward (02:06)
- Why visualizing your ideal day clarifies your goals (03:33)
- How to set aligned goals that actually motivate you (05:31)
- The secret to creating a balanced, flexible plan (06:44)
- Why daily habits and rhythms are key to lasting success (08:18)
- How to use one word to focus your year and decisions (10:36)
ChatGPT Prompt
“I’d like to come up with one or two words which will be my word or theme of the year. I would like to achieve this [business goal], [health & fitness goal], [family goal], [relationship goal], [income goal] and [wealth goal]. I want less [of these feelings/outcomes]. Give me 20 words that fit this criteria, and could potentially be used as my word of the year.”
QUOTES
- “A goal without a plan is just a wish. Map out how you’ll achieve your goals, but stay flexible enough to adapt.”- Samantha Riley
- “Resilience is a superpower, and every challenge is an opportunity to grow and get stronger and build that muscle of resilience.” – Samantha Riley
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TRANSCRIPTION
Samantha Riley 0:00
No matter how much you plan, life will throw curve balls. So success isn’t about avoiding the challenges, it’s about how you respond to them. So stay flexible, adjust your plans as needed, and don’t let setbacks derail you.
Welcome to Influence By Design. This is the podcast for coaches, healers, and experts dedicated to mastering the art of influence to accelerate business growth and impact, discover transformative strategies that turn your expertise into expansive success.
Happy New Year. How exciting. It’s a brand new year, which means a fresh start, new opportunities, endless possibilities. So today we’re going to talk about how to set yourself up for success in 2025. But let’s be real, right? Success doesn’t happen by accident. So if you want this year to be your best year yet, you’ve got to set yourself up for it intentionally. So today I’m going to share some powerful strategies to help you start the year strong, stay on track no matter what comes your way. Now anyone can set goals, but if those goals aren’t aligned with what you truly want, you’ll spend the year grinding. You’ll feel burnt out, and you’ll be self-sabotaging, and you’ll be doing that subconsciously. And I see so many people doing this, and they’re constantly wondering, why can’t I get the results, especially the results that I think I want? They get really down on themselves, and their confidence really gets battered. Now, I know you want to create a life and business you love, one that’s aligned, abundant, and full of purpose. And I know how easy it is to set big goals in January only to lose momentum by February, March, maybe July. But this year can be different, and I’m here to help you make it happen. I’m going to share some of the strategies that we use in our business, and I’m going to share some of the ways that we do that and some of the mistakes I’ve made in the past.
So let’s go with strategy one, and that’s before you even set your goals. Reflect and reset. Now before you dive into planning, take a moment to reflect on last year, what went well and why. Take the time to understand why something went well, and it will help you to understand where to double down on this year. Think about what you’re proud of. Too often we achieve something, no matter how big or small it is, and then we forget to celebrate our wins. And success builds on success. So start by recognising how far you’ve already come, and it will build your confidence to move forward with energy. Then I want you to reflect on what didn’t go so well and why. Now this isn’t to get down on yourself. This isn’t something to like get stuck in. This is to take a look at the data and understand what didn’t work so that you don’t repeat the same mistakes this year. The other thing is, you might just realise that something that you thought was a big failure might just actually need a small tweak to make sure that you get success next time around. And finally, write down three things that you accomplished last year that you’re grateful for. Gratitude is a huge foundation for success, and it will really help you to move forward.
So strategy number two is to get clear on your big picture vision. Now, if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there. So I want you to start to think about your life as a whole, not just as a business. How do you want your year to look and feel like? How do you want your months, your weeks, and your days to look and feel? Now, if this is too big for you and you’re struggling to create your big picture vision, start by imagining your ideal day. Now why we do this is because your ideal day reflects what truly matters to you and will give you a foundation, I guess, for your bigger vision. So start to visualise your ideal perfect day, not your perfect day of lying on the beach with cocktails, if that’s what your perfect day looks like, but your average perfect day. What time do you wake up? What are you doing? Who are you hanging out with? How do you feel throughout the day? Where are you? Are you at home? Are you traveling? Are you in nature? Are you in a really busy office or a coffee shop? And write it down in detail, create a really vivid description of how you want to live. Really go into that sensory, rich description, so that you can feel it, so that you can see it, and then identify the key themes. Look for patterns. Notice what values stand out. Is freedom, or connection, or creativity a priority, and then use these themes as the building blocks for your vision. And by really grounding in your vision of your ideal day, you’ll start to create a clear and motivating picture of what you want your life to look like, of where you want to start building it. And that clarity will help you stay focused and intentional as you move forward. So now you’ve got clear on that lifestyle vision.
The third strategy is to get clear, set clear and aligned goals. So goal setting is key here, but not all goals are created equal. So instead of setting vague goals, like, I want to make more money or I want to get healthy, set really clear, specific and aligned goals. For example, if financial growth is your goal, maybe something like, I want to increase my revenue by 25% by launching a new group program, and then break your goals into smaller milestones and make sure they align with your bigger vision and values. Now, as these goals drop in for you, write them down and then check in with yourself, are these goals that I’ve written down, are they truly aligned with me, or have I been derailed by someone else’s goal? It’s amazing how often we can think we want something, and when we truly feel into it, we’re like, huh, it’s actually not exactly what we want. So really get honest with yourself and make sure that the goals that you write down are truly aligned and that you absolutely want them.
Strategy four is to create a plan with priorities. So something that I often say is a goal without a plan is just a wish. So once you’ve set your goals, map out how you’re going to achieve them. I work with my Black Diamond clients in eight week cycles. So we work in a six week sprint and then a two week rest period. Now, back when I first started goal setting, which wasn’t actually when we first started our business, it was a little bit further on. Once I kind of found my feet in business, I used to work in 90 day blocks, and what I realised is that I often left the majority of the work of a new project to the last few weeks of the cycle. So I started to think, what if I worked in 30 day cycles instead? Would I get more projects ticked off? So I gave it a go, and it did work for a while, but I did start to feel burnt out, because I felt like I was running a marathon at sprint pace. So now we work in eight week blocks, six weeks on and two weeks off, and it works really well. So we have the two weeks to either catch up on what we haven’t finished, make sure we complete everything before we start again, or we can totally take the time off. This is a really great way to book in your vacation time, or your time off, or sometimes we slowly plan and get ready for the next cycle, and we just go with however we’re feeling at the time, and we’re okay with that.
So strategy five is to build success habits, routines, and rhythms. So success isn’t about big, dramatic actions. It’s about the small, consistent habits that you build every day. So start to think, what are the habits that will support your goals? Maybe it’s a morning routine, maybe it’s daily journaling, maybe it’s setting aside regular focus time for working on your business, not working in your business, and create routines that will keep you on track. Start small, build momentum, and remember progress over perfection is the goal here. Now I want to talk about rhythms. While routines are fixed and time specific, rhythms are adaptable, and they’re flow based, and they’re based on your unique alignment. So as an entrepreneur, I’m always striving to be better, more productive, more focused, more successful, whatever that means to me at the time. So many years ago, one of the things I did was buy a copy of Hal Elrod’s book, The Miracle Morning. It’s a fabulous book, and it’s about a morning routine, consisting of six habits that include silence, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing. And he calls that savers. Now the idea is, you get up early and you do these six habits before you start your day. And I thought it sounded great, because I love doing every single one of these things. But here’s what I found. My natural energy for work, my natural rhythm for being productive and creative, is at an all time high first thing in the morning. Now, the time when I was doing my Miracle Morning Routine was at my most productive time, and what happened was actually lost productivity. So now I do what the gurus tell you not to do. I get out of bed and I get straight into work for about 30 minutes to an hour. Then I have breakfast, and I get straight back into it. And then I do my writing in the morning while I’m focused, and I move my exercise into the late morning, and then my meditation, journaling, and my reading heading into the late afternoon and mostly into the evening, and that’s my natural rhythm. So I encourage you to try different rhythms and go what works best for you, because we are all unique.
Let’s go into strategy number six, which is to choose a word or a theme for the year. Now I can’t remember exactly what year I started doing this, but I have been doing this practice for at least 10 years, and this one word is the lens, I guess, which I make all my decisions through. Now I know many people choose a word for their business and then a different word for their personal life, but I choose one word, because as business owners, our business is only one part of our ecosystem, and each part of that system is influenced by the other parts. Our business is influenced by our relationships. If we’re not having a great time in our relationships, it affects our business or our finances or our health and wellness, they all work together. So Leon and I choose one word, and we choose this word together, even though we have our own personal goals, because these goals are, our personal goals are part of the big vision that we have for our life as a whole. So we choose one word together, and I found the best way to choose this word is to brainstorm what you want your outcomes for the year to be and how you want to feel. So over the years, I’ve chosen words, including fun, which is after a year where everything felt like a grind. I’ve chosen words like expansion, refinement, growth, and this year, our word is sustainability. We’ve chosen this word because all our actions this year need to feel or need to be sustainable for the long term. Now if we can’t sustain it, we don’t want to bother wasting energy on it in the first place. So our fitness, our wellness, our business, our wealth creation, our finances, all the different parts of our life need to be sustainable for the long term. That doesn’t mean that we’re going just to sustain and ride out the year at one level. It means that we’re going to grow and evolve in sustainable ways. So our home has a lot of energy in it. I’m a generator. I absolutely love to work. And Leon’s a mani-gen who does everything. But you know, even us energy types need to rest. So sustainability is exactly what we need, so that we don’t burn out this year, as we grow, as we expand, as we take our business, our lives, all the time that we’re going to be spending with our family and our brand new grandbaby. It needs to be sustainable. Now, if you haven’t set your word for the year and you’d like a little help to come up with your word, then I thoroughly suggest using Chat GPT. It can be a great start. This is what I did to start off the process of coming up with my word this year. And this is the prompt that I used. So you can go back and listen to this, or I’ll make sure that it’s down in the show notes as well. But this is the prompt that we used in Chat GPT. I’d like to come up with one or two words which will be my word or theme of the year. I would like to achieve this business goal, this health and fitness goal, this family goal, this relationship goal, this income goal, and this wealth goal. I want less of these feelings and outcomes. Give me 20 words that could potentially be used as my word of the year. Now it will give you those 20 words. And it might not come up with a word that resonates right away, but it can be a really good sounding board, and it can be really what you need to get started in the process. Take a word, feel, you know, sleep on it, feel into what feels right, and then you know when it feels right, just go with it.
So finally, remember, no matter how much you plan, life will throw curve balls. So success isn’t about avoiding the challenges. It’s about how you respond to them. So stay flexible, adjust your plans as needed, and don’t let setbacks derail you. I truly believe that the more or you learn more from the things that don’t go right than the things that happen easily and seamlessly. Resilience is your superpower, and every challenge is an opportunity to grow and get stronger and build that muscle of resilience. Now I’d love to hear from you what’s one goal you’re setting for this year, and what’s your one word of the year? Drop it in the comments. I’d love to cheer you on. And if you found this episode helpful, share it with a friend, and don’t forget to subscribe for more tips to help you thrive this year. This year is full of potential, and I know you’ve got what it takes to make it incredible. Success is about intention, action, staying true to yourself, and being aligned. Thanks for tuning in today and until next time, let’s make this year your best year yet.
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Influence By Design podcast. If you want more, head over to influencebydesignpodcast.com for the show notes and links to today’s gifts and sponsors, and if you’re looking to connect with other experts who are growing and scaling their business too, join us in the coaches, thought leaders, and change makers community on Facebook. The links are waiting for you over at influencebydesignpodcast.com.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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