Leaders Share Their Thoughts on What They Want to Achieve in the Coming Year

A few weeks ago, I hosted an exhibitor booth at the MA Conference for Women. As part of the booth, I had created a backdrop where attendees could post their responses to the prompt, “The year ahead will be my best year yet because…” As I looked at their answers, I saw several themes. Below I’ve listed a handful of the themes along with an example or two of the actual statements.

• Career development / Honing skills — “finish my degree” “improve my decision-making skills” “move up — either in my company or a new one” “become a CEO” “start my side hustle” “get my orange belt”
• Fearlessness — “get out my my comfort zone” “be brave” “trust my voice” “speak my truth” “be myself”
• Develop focus — “focus on the 20% that moves me closer to my goals…velocity” “take intentional actions toward my future vision” “declutter my home and mind”
• Identify passion / purpose — “live a meaningful life” “live authentically”
• Building / Deepening relationships — “prioritizing time with my family” “helping my daughter choose the best college for her” “make a difference for my team” “create my own personal board of directors”
• Work / Life integration — “have more balance” “a fulfilling and purposeful career that is kind to my health and works best for me” “work to live, not live to work”
• Learn to enjoy the moment — “being present in today” “slow down” “patience, calm, and quiet” “contentment” “find my peace”
• Attending to health — “prioritize my health and fitness journey” “mindful eating” “prioritize my health”
• Establishing self-care routines — “fit myself in to my day” “make me a priority” “take care of myself”
• Getting financial house in order — “getting out of debt” “save for my future”
• Heart-centered — “have more compassion” “love for myself and others”
• Travel — “safari in Africa” “two stamps in my passport”

We all have visions of the lives we want to be living. The invitation is to begin to make those dreams a reality now — not someday! I’ll give you an example based on the list above. In addition to the professional goals we were working on, a CFO shared with me that one of her personal “moonshot” goals was to take an epic trip with her grown children. She called it a moonshot because she believed that the dream was just too big. There was no way she’d be able to get the kids to agree on a location; to align available dates; and to amass the funds needed to make the trip happen. We laid out a plan that had her starting by sharing her vision with her kids and explaining to them why this was important to her. She then enlisted them in the “adventure before the adventure,” making the process joyful for all of them. Lo and behold, two years from that first conversation, they set out on their epic trip!

What’s your dream for 2025? And what will you do today to begin to make it happen?