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Your 2025 Planning Guide to Clarity and Confidence

Dec 23, 2024

Read time: 6 minutes

With just over a week left in 2024, it’s time to get serious about your plan.

At the end of every year, I like to do two things:

  1. Reflect on the prior year
  2. Create a plan for the year ahead

I know setting aside time for this (especially during the holiday hustle) can feel overwhelming.

Maybe you’ve tried it before, only to hit a wall of hesitation or excuses. Maybe you’re unsure where to start. Or maybe this year has felt like another round of going through the motions without making meaningful progress.

Either way, it’s easy to let the year slip by without taking stock of what worked, what didn’t, and what’s next.

But here’s the thing: you can start fresh. You don’t have to stay stuck in the same cycle.

Today, I’ll share my simple Annual Planning Guide, designed to give you the structure you need to make 2025 your most intentional year yet.

This guide covers two key components of my process:

  1. A (detailed) Reflection Exercise
  2. A Goal-Setting Framework

I hope this inspires you to start your own annual planning process for 2025. I’m confident you’ll find the exercise valuable.

Let’s unpack this.

Reflection Exercise

Before you can plan ahead, it’s best to reflect on the past year. The idea is to understand what worked, what didn’t, and, most importantly, what you learned. When you take stock of your experiences, you gain clarity, which makes planning for 2025 much more effective.

My annual reflection exercise has six connected components:

  1. Clarity Check-In
  2. Key Events
  3. Milestones and Wins
  4. Challenges and Learnings
  5. Relationships
  6. Professional Growth

Here’s how it works.

1. Clarity Check-In

Start by reflecting on your current state, both personally and professionally. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your clarity? A 10 means you feel aligned with your values and that things are moving smoothly. A 1 would mean you feel lost or disconnected from your purpose. Be honest with yourself. This check-in will give you a baseline and help you identify what needs to shift in the new year.

Note: You may prefer to divide this further, in which case you might divide the Personal check-in into Health, Relationships, etc. I like to split it into two (Personal and Professional) for simplicity, but do what works best for you.

2. Key Events of 2024

Look back at your calendar (or think about major moments) and note down the key events of 2024. What happened? What moments shaped your year? Good or bad, everything has a lesson if you take the time to reflect on it.

3. Milestones and Wins

Take a minute to celebrate yourself. What were the 1-3 biggest wins of the year? They could be big career moments, personal growth, or small victories that had a big impact. These milestones are worth recognizing because they help you see how far you’ve come.

4. Challenges and Learnings

It’s important to acknowledge the challenges as well. What were the obstacles you faced? How did you overcome them, and what did you learn along the way? This isn’t about beating yourself up—it’s about identifying patterns that can help you make smarter choices next year.

5. Relationships

Think about the relationships that have influenced you this year. Were there new connections that had a significant impact? Have any relationships evolved in ways that affected your personal or professional growth? These connections can often provide insight into what matters most to you.

6. Professional Growth

Finally, how have you progressed professionally or in your studies? What were your key lessons and learnings? How have these experiences shaped your future goals or aspirations (if at all)? Be specific—this can inform your next steps in a big way.

Goal-Setting Exercise

Once you’ve reflected on 2024, it’s time to look forward. Setting clear, intentional goals for the coming year is crucial if you want 2025 to be your most intentional year yet. You’ve got the lessons from the past—now let’s focus on what you want to achieve.

Here’s the framework I use:

  1. Set Big, Meaningful Goals
  2. Ask Why
  3. Break Goals into Checkpoints
  4. Build a System of Consistency

Let’s walk through it.

1. Set Big, Meaningful Goals

These are your big, year-long goals. They should be large and ambitious. But be specific.

Instead of “Get a promotion at work,” make it concrete: “Lead three new projects in 2025 within the following business segments. [List areas or project focus].”

Instead of “Declutter,” expand on it, such as “Eliminate all clutter and transform my living space into an organized, peaceful environment so I can focus on [X] and function better at [whatever it is you want to do in this space].”

Make sense?

Break it down into something that you can measure and track. When you’re specific, your goals become actionable rather than just statements.

2. Ask Why

Now that you’ve written down your goals ask yourself: Why do you want to achieve these goals? Understanding the deeper reason behind your goals will keep you focused on what matters. It’s not about checking boxes—it’s about aligning your actions with your values.

When you’re clear on your “why,” you can stay grounded in your purpose throughout the year.

3. Break Goals into Checkpoints

Here’s the key: Big goals can feel overwhelming if you don’t break them down. Take each goal and break it into 3-5 major moves or quarterly quests. This makes everything feel more manageable and gives you clear checkpoints along the way. Ask yourself, What’s the next move I need to make to move this goal forward?

4. Build a System for Consistency

Goals are important, but success comes from the system you build to achieve them. What daily or weekly habits will help you stay on track?

This is where the magic happens—small, consistent actions add up over time. Whether it’s a morning routine, a weekly review session, or a habit tracker, your system will keep you accountable and ensure you stay focused on your goals.

Putting It Into Action

To put the goal-setting framework into action:

  1. Big, Meaningful Goals: Select 1-3 big goals within each primary area of your life (Personal and Professional). Write them down.
  2. Ask Why: Answer why you want to achieve these goals. It’s not about checking boxes—it’s about aligning your actions with your values.
  3. Checkpoints: Select 3-5 major moves or quarterly quests for each big goal. Write them down below the associated big goal.
  4. Build a System: Consider the simplest daily or weekly actions that would create forward progress toward your checkpoints and big goals.

To bring this to life, here’s an illustrative example of one of my main professional goals for 2025:

  • Big Goal: Create a movement of 200 people from around the world who want to thrive inside Clarity Lab and take action to build their lives around the priorities that matter most to them. At its core, the Lab is helping you align your work and life with your values.

  • Ask Why: I want to build Clarity Lab to be a significant part of my business and my primary focus. Since leaving my job at the end of 2023 and stepping out on my own for the first time, I’ve been a bit all over the place. I have a million exciting and big ideas, all of which I’ve talked Alexius’ ear off about, but I can’t put them all into action at once. I must focus and be intentional for things to thrive. Clarity Lab is where that starts.

  • Checkpoints:
    • To help get the party started, the Lab will pre-launch to a small group between December 2024 and early Q1 2025.
    • Reach the first 100+ members by Summer 2025 and 200+ by November 2025.
    • This time next year, continue to build the Lab into the go-to resource for clarity seekers and start rolling out the other amazing ideas I’d love to implement.

  • Build a System: Communities thrive through unscalable actions. When I started my YouTube channel, I made it a priority to reply to every comment, which made a huge difference by offering support and building genuine connections. I’m bringing that mindset back. Engaging with members of the Lab, both one-on-one and in group settings, is crucial for creating passionate advocates for the message. Live workshops, challenges, events, and tailored support will be key. Content creation will also significantly attract new followers and deepen connections with those already here. Consistent, intentional creation across my primary channels will keep everything moving forward.

 

Your 2025 Starts Now 

The reflection and planning exercises I presented here are the foundation for making 2025 your most intentional year. But here’s the key: the real magic happens when you start acting on what you outline.

Remember, setting goals is just the beginning. Success comes from consistency—staying committed to your goals, one step at a time.

So, take a deep breath and get started. 2025 is yours to shape.

See you next week, my friend.

 

Whenever you’re ready, here’s how I can help:

1. The Declutter Kit: The most straightforward way to approach decluttering. I share 8+ years of expertise, proven methods, and actionable strategies. This course will help you save time, conquer your clutter, and prioritize your values.

2. Get my Core Values Worksheet: Step-by-step guide to help you identify your values (free).

Want to talk about collaborating? Have a question or feedback?

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