2025 Goals

[MaybeBabyMustache]

Is anyone thinking about their goals for the year? I know we have some folks who join in on the monthly goals threads, which I always find useful. I'm just getting rolling with my 2025 goals. I keep the same categories as I use for the monthly goals.

Feel free to join in! I always think of my yearly goals as the anchor to my monthly goals.

Here's what I'm thinking of so far:

Financial:
-Continue to pay for both boys college expenses
-Get a new job
-Earn $3000 in side hustle
-Stay on top of food waste by doing monthly pantry or freezer challenges
-Once I get a new job, figure out a revised savings target. This one is a bit on hold for specifics until I have that information.

Family:
-Both boys successfully in college
-Optimize points, perks & miles for travel. Track value over the year.
-Plan & have two fantastic & (reasonably) on budget trips to Europe. Spain in March, Italy in October.
-Figure out/plan for remodel
-Enjoy DS17's senior year

Fitness:
-Lose 10 lbs
-Strength train 100 days
-No S diet 150 days
-Meditate 100 times
-Try a new workout

Personal:
-Language lessons 100 times
-Declutter 500 items from the house
-Take a college class
-Get together with friends
-Get better at pickleball
-Try something new & uncomfortable
-Say yes to more adventures

[LinneaH]

I'm absolutely joining this, thank you @MaybeBabyMustache!
So far I have set my main focus areas (health, family, home, me) and I need to think more about specific goals, but I also need to write a bit about it so I can make some structured progress.

Updated on New years day in order to be more specific and have measurable goals. Still not final, I will give it also the first weekend.

Health

• Weight: for every month: weigh less end of month than start of month. Use MFP just to log food. I would love to set some numbers goals but I'm a bit scared, it has been a tough year and I feel really unsure about this. I will try for one kilo/month, which would put me in normal range mid December. I am currently just below obese.
• Running: this is tied to weight loss, as right foot currently will hurt to much from running. First goal is to be able to start running slowly in April. Second goal is to complete a 10 km race in August w/girlfriend who is a runner. We have already signed up, which gives me positive energy.
• Strength: gym at least 100 times during the year.
• Swimming at least 25 times during the year. Try the indoor pool on the way home from work at least once during Q1.
• Food: increase protein, veggies, quality. Decrease calories, pasta, bread.
• Outdoors: go for at least a short walk every day, preferrably during daylight. At least four longer hikes on my own. Schedule birthday hike w/friend.
• Yoga & stretching at least three times a week, at least ten minutes.
• Sleep at least seven hours at least four nights a week.

Family

• More energy: Eat better, move more and sleep more, see specific goals.
• Less screen. Not sure yet how to quantify and measure.
• Activities w/kids: At least one thing every weekend.
• Trips/holidays: summer holiday needs to be planned end of April. Plan something for October week.
• Indoor pool once a month.
• Decrease interaction w/ex. Do not cover up for him.

Home

• Bedroom: finish it, make it as nice as possible and use it. Includes getting nice storage boxes for the shelves.
• Doors: make a decision and take action. At least two sessions a month in Q1.
• Balcony: For 2025 the plan is space and no edibles. Create a nice spot or two for the cats. Action in May.
• Growing/garden: Plan in Q1, action in Q2. Something really nice for the kids. Lots of fertilizer. Some kind of permanent edible, like a berry bush. Further clean out of the garden storage.
• Cleaning. I need to sort out a cleaning routine for the apartment. Will be easier once bedroom is finished. Possibly get back w/FlyLady.
• Continue declutter. Progress but still a lot left. I want to go through all areas at a starting level, including basement storage. Then restart KonMari. Also make sure I utilize the built in storage spaces in a better way.
• Hang hooks in rooms and basement.
• Create the painting for the living room. Need to be outdoors so in the spring/summer.
• Order and hang photos of the kids.

Me

• Bucket list: I have a limited amount of years left in my life. I want to become clearer on how to spend them.
• Serenity: I want to feel better, calmer, more energized. More on this later.
• Van: Use it more w/o the kids. Go for hikes and stay the night. This will take some planning.
• Hotel home: I really want to feel better when I am at home and I know this is very much related to decluttering and in some way also to decorating.

[Geppetto]

Sure, I'll play!
Health
 - Lose 15lbs
 - 7500 steps/day average
Financial
 - Increase net worth $500k
 - Spend 20% less than in 2024
Work
 - Owe no client anything at end of each calendar quarter (clean desk)
 - Be home by 6pm on 85% of workdays
 - Work fewer than 25% of Saturdays
Personal
 - Take each kid on one special outing
 - Consider spouse's happiness & well-being daily
 - Read 1 work of actual literature per month (with no re-reads)
 - Retire all grudges interiorly, and establish affirmative peace with at least one enemy

[Turtle]

I’ll play too.  2025 is my last full year of work prior to retirement, so there will be a lot of goals associated with that. 

January specifics to kick the year off right and set the tone:

• Pull up Pre-retirement checklist from this board and personalize to my situation
• Start an 18 month countdown journal here
• Potential travel MLK weekend
• Prioritize setting up health/fitness routine that is travel flexible
• Home makeover/declutter - get all donations out of staging area and passed along

Lots of aspects of my life are going well, but there’s 3 primary areas that need extra focus this year.  Arguably the last 2 fit partially into the first one, but they are the areas which slipped the most while I was going through the caretaking and initial grieving phases and need additional attention to bring them back in line.


Preparing for 2026 Retirement

Health and Fitness

Whole house makeover/tuneup

[Nederstash]

In 2025, I want to keep it 100.

• 100 gym visits. On a good/normal week, I go to the gym 3x a week, but there's holidays, days I skip due to feeling ill etc. I'll be happy with 100 total
  
• 100 hours of movement (walking or cycling)
• 100 books tried. Notice I wrote 'tried', not 'read'. I have a huge backlog of books, some I have inherited. I give a book at least 20 pages but if it turns me off, I'll happily pass it on. Those will still count to the total of 'tried' books, since it helps me declutter books along the way. And I'll also read full books of course.
• 100 hours drawing. I have found a great tutorial on how to learn to draw in 100 hours I've been meaning to start - search Nerdforge 100 hours to draw on youtube.
• 100 hours writing

This may or may not have been inspired by me finding a stack of 500 glittery stickers which I will definitely use to track my progress like the magpie child that I am.

[Nederstash]

In 2025, I want to keep it 100.

• 100 gym visits. On a good/normal week, I go to the gym 3x a week, but there's holidays, days I skip due to feeling ill etc. I'll be happy with 100 total
  
• 100 hours of movement (walking or cycling)
• 100 books tried. Notice I wrote 'tried', not 'read'. I have a huge backlog of books, some I have inherited. I give a book at least 20 pages but if it turns me off, I'll happily pass it on. Those will still count to the total of 'tried' books, since it helps me declutter books along the way. And I'll also read full books of course.
• 100 hours drawing. I have found a great tutorial on how to learn to draw in 100 hours I've been meaning to start - search Nerdforge 100 hours to draw on youtube.
• 100 hours writing

This may or may not have been inspired by me finding a stack of 500 glittery stickers which I will definitely use to track my progress like the magpie child that I am.

Happy New Year everyone! It's currently noon and I'm already down 2 books and 1 hour of walking. To be fair, the books were really small poetry books, but hey, thin books are books too! It's nice to have something on the board to get the year started off right!

[Metalcat]

2025 could be the first year in my entire life that I don't have some fucking MASSIVE challenge to overcome.

2024 was pretty nuts, and 2023 before that was so intense I'm still processing it in therapy. So yeah, having no giant dragons to slay in 2025 looks pretty appealing. I'll likely have one major surgery, but it's just to remove all the metal in my leg. It's not for function.

So yeah, 2025 will ideally be all about self-care.

HEALTH
-Heavy focus on PT exercise, every day that my body can physically handle it I'll do at least some exercises, even if just a few stretches, just to cement the daily routine
-Sugar break until mid-March, I can develop a sweet tooth and a few months break always fixes that and makes sugar boring to me
-More consistent therapy, evidently our new insurance covers $5000 per year, and I still have a lot of 2023 to process. I am a therapist, so sometimes getting therapy feels too tedious, but since I've cut back my working hours, that should free up some bandwidth

FINANCIAL
-Just save money, lol. Between investment properties, renos, grad school, starting a business, etc, a lot of money has flowed out for the past several years. It will be nice to get back to money going IN to savings.

I have no specific savings goals because I'm still trying to figure out how much I can work while maintaining excellent self care. We're LeanFI and I have no intention of retiring, so there's no rush to reach a specific target.

PROFESSIONAL
-Figure out my hours. I've cut back to focus on PT, but I don't know if that's just temporary or indefinite. I *just* launched this business in September, so I'm still figuring out what work looks like in my best life now that I'm working again after a few years of being retired.

My goal is that by the end of 2025, I have a solid, well-oiled machine of a business that only adds to my overall quality of life.

PERSONAL
-Finish my home projects. Whether I rehab enough to do it myself or bite the bullet and pay someone, I want my home finished. It doesn't need a lot, it's just so easy to keep putting it off. Living in a space I love is a huge quality of life thing for me.
-Keep up the effort with my relationships. I've heavily prioritized my connections and my marriage for the last several years. My goal is to not let any of that slide.
-Go on a trip. DH requested a big trip for his 50th birthday, but instead got a small dinner because I was in a wheelchair on opioids at the time. It's our 10 year anniversary this year and we have so many travel points from our real estate spending that I'm planning a trip to two places to celebrate both things.
-Plan our next big adventure. The trip is dual purpose, it's to celebrate, but also to scout a new place to live. We've decided to seriously explore leaving Canada in a few years, so we'll use this trip as a fact-finding mission and I'll spend 2025 hammering out the logistics of completely altering the course of our lives...again...because I like to do that. Lol

[TheFrenchCat]

I'm not good at setting long-ish term goals, but I'm going to try this year to be a bit more intentional with that.

Health-lose 20 pounds (I have a lot of excess to lose, so I don't think this is too much of a stretch goal)
         -reduce alcohol intake to a point where it doesn't interfere with other health goals
         -exercise consistently-we're working on getting a rowing machine since  it's cold where we live about half the year, and I'm a wimp about being too cold
         
Financial/Work-keep spending at/under $60k for the year. 
                     -maintain usefulness at new in-person job and grow skills for it
                     -find a new remote job to replace the current one.  Needs to be almost as flexible and more interesting/related to what I'd actually want to do

Social-Hang out with friends at least once a month
        -have date night with DH once a week, even if it's an at home date
        -maintain appropriate boundaries with family

Personal Development-come up with concrete goals for therapy, instead of mostly using it for maintenance
                                -explore long term career options
                                -work on improving memory

[MaybeBabyMustache]

So many great goals on this list, and I love reading about what everyone has in mind for the year ahead, both from an approach perspective, as well as tangible goals.

[Jack0Life]

I didn't have any goals the past few years but I do have 1 this year.
Pay off the main house.
We owe exactly $274472. Same looking backward.
The problem is that we have an ARM loan and it finally reset last year to 3.99%.
This loan will reset again in Sept to 5.99%.
We have around $235k in CDs and MM earning ~5%.
I will slowly use that account to pay down the mortgage and hopefully be done by the time it reset.
I'm short about $40k.
Some of the money in MM is only getting 4.35% so I'm better off using all of that paying down the 3.99% now.
Some of the CDs are maturing in May.

[Poundwise]

I had a very active year and accomplished a lot on many fronts, but I had the feeling that I was always one step ahead of the avalanche. 

I think my goal for this year has to be--
Do less. But commit fully to what I decide to keep doing.

[Nederstash]

In 2025, I want to keep it 100.

• 100 gym visits. On a good/normal week, I go to the gym 3x a week, but there's holidays, days I skip due to feeling ill etc. I'll be happy with 100 total
  
• 100 hours of movement (walking or cycling)
• 100 books tried. Notice I wrote 'tried', not 'read'. I have a huge backlog of books, some I have inherited. I give a book at least 20 pages but if it turns me off, I'll happily pass it on. Those will still count to the total of 'tried' books, since it helps me declutter books along the way. And I'll also read full books of course.
• 100 hours drawing. I have found a great tutorial on how to learn to draw in 100 hours I've been meaning to start - search Nerdforge 100 hours to draw on youtube.
• 100 hours writing

This may or may not have been inspired by me finding a stack of 500 glittery stickers which I will definitely use to track my progress like the magpie child that I am.

Goals list:
100 books tried - currently read 10, on my 11th now! My tactic was starting short books. I've completely finished 9 and quit 1 after trying at least 20 pages (protagonist was insufferable), so that counts as 10! Starting on longer books now, so the pace will decrease.
100 hours of movement - 2 down
100 times to the gym - 2 down
100 hours of drawing - 2 down
100 hours of writing - 1 down, I injured my shoulder and typing was physically painful. But that's the beauty of the year-long plan, my pursuing of the goals can ebb and flow with my needs. I have a guideline of "2 a week" but I don't 'fail' a goal if I don't make that every week. Shoulder's better now, looking forward to write more over the weekend.

Additional goal: get mortgage down to €45k by the end of the year. Current: €64207

[LinneaH]

I had a very active year and accomplished a lot on many fronts, but I had the feeling that I was always one step ahead of the avalanche. 

I think my goal for this year has to be--
Do less. But commit fully to what I decide to keep doing.

Best goal ever in that situation. I will think about this for myself as well.

[ProxyRetired]

No eating out, except for emergencies, and maaaaaybe vacation (but we AirBNB so we can just cook our own food anyways)!

[Nederstash]

In 2025, I want to keep it 100.

• 100 gym visits. On a good/normal week, I go to the gym 3x a week, but there's holidays, days I skip due to feeling ill etc. I'll be happy with 100 total
  
• 100 hours of movement (walking or cycling)
• 100 books tried. Notice I wrote 'tried', not 'read'. I have a huge backlog of books, some I have inherited. I give a book at least 20 pages but if it turns me off, I'll happily pass it on. Those will still count to the total of 'tried' books, since it helps me declutter books along the way. And I'll also read full books of course.
• 100 hours drawing. I have found a great tutorial on how to learn to draw in 100 hours I've been meaning to start - search Nerdforge 100 hours to draw on youtube.
• 100 hours writing

This may or may not have been inspired by me finding a stack of 500 glittery stickers which I will definitely use to track my progress like the magpie child that I am.

Update week 2:
Books: 12/100 (11 read, 1 tried for >20 pages and DNF)
Gym: 4/100
Drawing: 2/100
Writing: 1/100
Movement: 4/100

Happy to be par for the course on gym and movement and WAY ahead on books! Writing and drawing have taken a backseat, will have to give this more attention... I'm so engrossed in reading right now! Mortgage remains at 64207; updates likely only a few times a year as I save up chunks to pay off.

[Geppetto]

Sure, I'll play!
Health
 - Lose 15lbs
 - 7500 steps/day average
Financial
 - Increase net worth $500k
 - Spend 20% less than in 2024
Work
 - Owe no client anything at end of each calendar quarter (clean desk)
 - Be home by 6pm on 85% of workdays
 - Work fewer than 25% of Saturdays
Personal
 - Take each kid on one special outing
 - Consider spouse's happiness & well-being daily
 - Read 1 work of actual literature per month (with no re-reads)
 - Retire all grudges interiorly, and establish affirmative peace with at least one enemy

1/15 check-in.

The good:
 - Lost 1lb (or so it seems, on average) so far. Not material but not going in the wrong direction.
 - Closer to "clean desk" at end of Q1 than I was 2 weeks ago. (But still in serious jeopardy of not achieving)
 - Halfway through one work of actual literature, halfway through the month
 - Spousal relations strong with daily consideration occurring

Neutral:
 - Spending has been bog-standard for January (low) but it's way too early for a financial check-in.

The not-so-good:
 - Average step count under 5000. At least 80% of step count is packed into 3 days out of 15. Daily routine is terribly sedentary.
 - Have worked 14 hours or more on half the days, so "home by 6pm on 85% of workdays" is in dire jeopardy for the year already. This is a function of work intake choices in Q3/Q4 2024. Should get better but needs to get a lot better.
 - No special kid outings planned yet.
 - All grudges remain intact; no affirmative peace achieved with any enemy. No steps taken in this direction. I already hate this goal. (But I intellectually believe it to be important one.)

Need to get some momentum going through the rest of January, on a couple of fronts anyway.

Nederstash: I love your format. You're crushing the reading. Question: Is your 100 hours of movement ambitious enough? That's about 2 hours a week - even my broken down carcass will do a multiple of that. In the friendliest possible way I'm offering a facepunch for not enough walking. 

[Nederstash]

Sure, I'll play!
Health
 - Lose 15lbs
 - 7500 steps/day average
Financial
 - Increase net worth $500k
 - Spend 20% less than in 2024
Work
 - Owe no client anything at end of each calendar quarter (clean desk)
 - Be home by 6pm on 85% of workdays
 - Work fewer than 25% of Saturdays
Personal
 - Take each kid on one special outing
 - Consider spouse's happiness & well-being daily
 - Read 1 work of actual literature per month (with no re-reads)
 - Retire all grudges interiorly, and establish affirmative peace with at least one enemy

1/15 check-in.

The good:
 - Lost 1lb (or so it seems, on average) so far. Not material but not going in the wrong direction.
 - Closer to "clean desk" at end of Q1 than I was 2 weeks ago. (But still in serious jeopardy of not achieving)
 - Halfway through one work of actual literature, halfway through the month
 - Spousal relations strong with daily consideration occurring

Neutral:
 - Spending has been bog-standard for January (low) but it's way too early for a financial check-in.

The not-so-good:
 - Average step count under 5000. At least 80% of step count is packed into 3 days out of 15. Daily routine is terribly sedentary.
 - Have worked 14 hours or more on half the days, so "home by 6pm on 85% of workdays" is in dire jeopardy for the year already. This is a function of work intake choices in Q3/Q4 2024. Should get better but needs to get a lot better.
 - No special kid outings planned yet.
 - All grudges remain intact; no affirmative peace achieved with any enemy. No steps taken in this direction. I already hate this goal. (But I intellectually believe it to be important one.)

Need to get some momentum going through the rest of January, on a couple of fronts anyway.

Nederstash: I love your format. You're crushing the reading. Question: Is your 100 hours of movement ambitious enough? That's about 2 hours a week - even my broken down carcass will do a multiple of that. In the friendliest possible way I'm offering a facepunch for not enough walking.

Hi Gepetto! I welcome all facepunches, so no worries! I should clarify what I mean by movement. I only count something as 'movement' when it's at least 30 minutes consecutively with increased heartrate/breathing, because that is the threshold for burning fat. Maybe I should say exercise or cardio, in addition to the gym. Usually this is either a two hour walk/bike ride or two one hour walks/bike rides during the weekend.

Of course I move around more than two hours a week; I bike to the gym, to the supermarket, to local friends, to the train station, but those rides are only 10-15 mins one way. I don't count those, that just counts as commute and not exercise.

And I also don't count cleaning my house and pacing around the office, LOL. Those combined would put some serious number on the board :P

[Poundwise]

I had a very active year and accomplished a lot on many fronts, but I had the feeling that I was always one step ahead of the avalanche. 

I think my goal for this year has to be--
Do less. But commit fully to what I decide to keep doing.

Best goal ever in that situation. I will think about this for myself as well.

Thanks!  I have to think about achieving this goal in terms of actions though.

Part 1, "Do less" is actually the hardest part. I'm in a lot of volunteer groups and since I try to add value if I belong to something, nobody wants me to go. However, today I successfully passed on one very time-consuming job (website, email blasts, and newsletter) to another board member, and we also recruited three interns who will be trained by the old interns, so hopefully his job won't be so bad.  I am taking on an officer role in this group but I am hoping it will be less time consuming for me but more impactful.

Part 2, "Commit fully".  One thing I need to do is more cleanup and followup after meetings.  Typically there are actions that need to be taken after a meeting or event, that I put off until shortly before the next meeting. The frantic rush to get ready exhausts me and I collapse if I have free time.  But this means things aren't done well or efficiently. I really have to stop doing the equivalent of leaving all the dirty dishes in the sink.  The minutes need to be edited and sent out promptly, the thank yous sent out and photos posted,  the files have to be organized in folders, the supplies put away neatly and lists made for next time, etc. 

So I guess this weekend I will force myself to go through everything I did this week, and make sure I'm doing some of the followup. Typically I just look ahead to the next week and see what I must do to get by.  Also, maybe at the same time I can think over each group and see if I can somehow recruit somebody (preferably a new person rather than burden another board member) to take on some of my responsibilities.