How to Make Your Goals Stick This Year

5 Tips for Making 2025 the best, plus my own goals for the year.

I don’t know what it is about the New Year, but I always get geeked and excited for personal growth and professional development.

Just ask Pretzel (my wife)-- for the past week+ I’ve been going on and on about my goals, new habits I want to create, how I want to be better in 2025, etc. I’ve even started the year with a nearly impossible goal (for me): no added sugar for the month of January.

Some people do Dry January, I’m going with Bland January… or Blanduary perhaps?

Note: I’m aware that you can have delicious food that doesn’t contain any added sugar, but Blanduary is fun to say.

I know some people make fun of us Resolutionists. They mock us for getting so gung-ho over an arbitrary day, setting new resolutions that are unlikely to even make it to February.

I get it. The logical part of me knows that there’s nothing inherently special about January 1 where I’m suddenly a better, healthier, more disciplined person.

But humans are not logical creatures. And if I have a sudden momentum for making a positive change (temporary or not), you’re darn-tootin’ I’m going to take it. Because what’s the alternative? Be cynical about how hard it is to form new habits and give up before you even start?

If you’re like me and have a newfound energy for making a change (even if it’s tiny), I’d encourage you to ride that wave to a better you. Here are a few tips that will help:

How to Make Your Goals Stick This Year

1. Set Specific, Measurable Goals

By now, you’ve probably heard some version of SMART Goals:

Specific + Measurable + Attainable + Relevant + Time-bound

Whether you follow the full acronym or not, it is important to be clear on what success looks like. Replace vague goals like “Save money,” with measurable criteria like “Save $25,000.”

Personally, I like to start with the larger goals of what I’d like to achieve by the end of the year. A great way to think about that is to “future-pace” your planning.

Imagine it’s December 31, 2025: What did you accomplish over the last year?

Then backtrack from there to figure out what you want to focus on. And if you’re still not sure, might I suggest developing a humor habit for the year :).

2. Turn Goals into with Habits

Once you have the big goal, instead of obsessing over the end result, focus on the habits that will get you there. If your goal is to "lose 20 pounds," work on establishing habits like drinking water with every meal or walking after dinner.

This helps you break big goals into small, manageable steps that you can quickly check off as completed. It’s much easier to know if you drank water or walked after dinner than it is to know if you’ve lost 0.05479452054 pounds each day.

Plus achieving these smaller goals builds momentum and confidence. But if your goal is to lose weight, don’t celebrate each of these small wins with a piece of chocolate cake…

3. Track Progress, Not Perfection

If you truly want to start doing something new, you have to track your progress, otherwise you’ll get to the end of the year and realize you didn’t achieve what you were aiming for (if you even remember what it was in the first place).

Instead of setting and forgetting–or the opposite where you fixate on being perfect–track your effort (good and bad). Use a journal, app, or calendar to record your daily or weekly progress.

Personally, I track my daily habits using an app called Bearable.

Celebrate wins, no matter how small, and learn from setbacks rather than letting them derail you. This type of daily habit tracking has been monumental in my past success.

4. Set Yourself Up for Success During High-Discipline Moments

We all have moments where we’re excited about change (like now), and other times when it almost seems pointless (after a few failures, when you’re stressed, or after day 14 of no sugar…).

This was not a high focus moment…

Ride the waves of energy and use your moments of motivation and discipline to create an environment that supports you when your willpower wanes. Prep meals in advance for busy days, lay out workout clothes the night before, or automate savings to remove the need for daily decision-making.

For my sugar goal, I’m removing all chocolate from my house and trying to stay stocked up on fruits and nuts to go to as an alternative.

By planning ahead, you can create the right environment that makes it easier to stay on track even when your motivation dips.

5. Create Accountability

I used to be the type of person who could give myself a specific challenge and that was all the motivation I needed to get it done. Something changed as I got older, busier, and more parenty. Now, I need more accountability for what I have, and haven’t, done.

Most of us humans need a bit of a friendly push from time-to-time. So share your goals with friends, family, or a community group. I have weekly accountability meetings scheduled with a friend of mine, and I’m assembling my “kitchen cabinet” for quarterly reviews.

Regular check-ins or even a simple text thread can help keep you motivated and committed. Knowing others are rooting for you can make a big difference. Need a community? Feel free to join us at Humor That Works.

How I’ll Thrive in 2025

Building off those five tips–and to add a bit of accountability–here are my top goals for the year.

1. 300 Good Days. My most productive years have been when I’ve followed my “Quality Days” system (that happens to implement a lot of the above). My primary goal is to get back to that process and achieve 300 Good Days. My five daily habits for 2025:

   1. Clear To-do List

   2. Exercise 20+ Minutes

   3. Consume < 25g of Added Sugar

   4. Study Spanish 30+ Minutes

   5. Have a Meaningful Moment with Someone

2. $100k in SAH revenue. While I’ll still continue speaking as I did this past year, my goal is to go from -$27k in “stay-at-home” revenue (aka money I make without leaving the house) and grow to $100k.

3. New Comedy Keynote Recorded. I really enjoyed putting together and releasing my Dry Bar special this past year. I’m wondering if I can do the same thing for a more keynote-like topic (i.e. comedy plus content). We’ll find out.

4. 500,000 followers across platforms. Part of building an online business is having an audience who values you what you do. I want to focus on growing my online presence (note: I’m currently at ~76,000 across Substack, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook).

5. 50 Weekly Newsletters. As I mentioned last week, these emails were one of my favorite things from 2024, so I’m going to keep them up.

6. 30 Minute Conversation in Spanish. I want to be conversationally fluent in Spanish by the end of the year. The biggest barrier to that is 1) I need to improve my listening and 2) I need to build up my stamina (right now, after 5 minutes of listening to Spanish, I zone out).

7. Best Shape Ever. Since 2008, I’ve somewhat regularly tracked 10 specific body measurements (e.g. Weight, Height, Stomach, Biceps, Quads, etc). This year, I want to get back to my best numbers for each, which will include 13 inch “guns” aka biceps aka yes-that’s-still-skinny-but-it’s-swole-for-me.

8. Daily Relationship Building. As an introvert, I’m pretty happy being on my own or with a few select people (like Pretzel and my daughter). But I also know I’m a better and happier person when I’m more closely connected to the people I care about in my life. I want to make sure I’m making strides every day to maintain the important relationships in my life (hi, mom!) and also nurture new ones.

9. Plus Pretzel and I have two joint goals we’ll be working on together.

If I can achieve all of that (or even at least some of it), 2025 will shape up to be a pretty fantastic year.

What about you? What are you going to achieve this year, and how can I help?

(an)drew

PS. I know I promised survey results this week, but I think it’s important to take advantage of new year energy for strategy and planning. I’ll share results next week and what that means for our community, as well as how we can make 2025 a more connected and fun year.