I have never been a woman for goals and new years resolutions. This may seem a little weird as I am aggressively ambitious. I feel like I want more but I am not very focused about how to do that. Or maybe I am? Because I am moving forward but maybe I am more flexible about how that happens. I don’t know!! All I do know is that goals don’t feel good for me. I don’t find them motivating and that’s only if I slow down long enough to try make myself think of goals. But despite this whole ramble, I do think we live a beautiful intentional life. And I think it would be a good thing to think about our year and our hopes and dreams for that year. But not with goals – with inspiration!
I also think having goals for a whole year feels impossible too. That’s so long for my AHDH brain. I will change my mind, I will forget and I will get bored. It’s just not working for me. The goals of “travel more” or “have a first successful year post promotion” just don’t work for me. I think they’re too vague, too long term and lack emotion.
So this is my solution for 2025! And yes, we’re in March. BUT this proves my new game plan actually works because I am still excited about all this! It’s a two fold plan. Part one – break the year up into chunks whether that’s a month or a couple of months or a quarter. And part two – no goals, just vibes and inspiration.
How I broke up 2025
On part one – that’s easy – think about your year and what each chunk of the year means to you. This takes a bit of introspective but can be thought of as a high level plan for the year.
These are my chunks:
– Jan&Feb25 – Post holiday back to work.
– Mar&Apr25 – Spring in England and a quick trip to see the Northern Lights.
– May25 – Start of summer in the London.
– Jun&Jul25 – Summer in London and a lot of France.
– Aug25 – Iceland!!
– Sep&Oct25 – work in progress – could be broken down further depending on how it all pans out.
– Nov&Dec25 – work in progress.
How I captured my inspiration for 2025
Part two takes a little more time but it’s fun and can be done from the couch. Create pinterest boards for all your time periods and get pinning! And be specific about it! The more you pin, the more good ideas get suggested to you. I love the suggested pins as they help with extra inspiration for each period. I struggled with May25 which is a month focused on early summer in London but once I started pinning I remembered more and more things that we’d like to do in the city!
For Jan&Feb25 I searched things like: “staying home”, “knitwear”, “pottery class”, “hand painted candles”, “working from home” and “reading in bed” for inspiration. Be really paricular about what you want that time to look and feel like. Does the board fill you with joy? Does it give you that fuzzy feeling? If not – keeping going until the board looks like a chunk of time you’re excited to step into.
The months where we have travel plans are the easiest to build out as we’d been dreaming and talking about these trips for months. August is our month in Iceland and quick sticks that board was filled up. I pinned beautiful sites, road trip scenes and things we’re excited to eat (fish and chips! hot dogs! langoustines! cinnamon rolls!). The slower quieter months were harder to fill. But in reality more of our year is filled with the day to day than the exciting holidays. And the every day should be exciting and worth celebrating. Having wonderful things to look forward to for every month has me so excited for 2025.
Cheat codes
I had a couple of prompts that helped with the every day magic and they will of course be specific to you. But sharing a couple of mine in case they’re helpful. I wanted each time period to have a cookie! Jan&Feb25 was pecan pie cookies and Mar&Apr25 will be carrot cake cookies. I also googled what produce was best in the UK for these months. Suddenly the Mar&Apr25 board was filled with rhubarb crumble, fresh strawberries, asparagus tarts and steaks with ramps (wild leeks) butter.
Continuing to check in on the Pinterest boards
I have found these boards super helpful both for dreaming about the good parts of this year and for reminding me about what I wanted to achieve for these months. I struggle to rest and to slow down. The Jan&Feb25 board was all about focusing on work, staying home and embracing the cozy needed during these winter months. I had a wobble at the end of January thinking we should quickly pop out to the Cotswolds for a night to see the snowbells. Costing out a night away in the Cotswolds came to about £1,000 for both of us – money we didn’t want and hadn’t planned to spend. I reminded myself about what the plan for Jan&Feb25 was about and knew we shouldn’t be trying to book this weekend.
The other thing I love about the Pinterest boards is that they’re work in progresses – exactly like every year! Being able to pop in and out to update the board as inspiration strikes is so great. I haven’t quite finalised our plans for the last four months of the year and that’s completely fine! I can work it out as the year plays out! These are chunks of time where new ideas and dreams can still evolve without being stuck in a resolution made at the beginning of 2025.
Anyway – a big ramble about how I am thinking about 2025 and maybe some of these rambles are inspiring for you. Because your year can be broken down into any chunks of time – you’re never too late to start! Month chunk resolutions start now!
