Can You Meet Your 2025 Goals? — Your Systems and “Pain Tolerance” May Be the Secret
There’s a lot of debate this time of year about whether to have goals or not. While I fail often, and sometimes spectacularly, at setting and achieving my goals, I am (for the record) pro goals.
Goals give us focus, energy, and a needed kick-in-the-pants at times. When our goals matter to us and are worthy of our efforts, they give us inspiration. They can give us boundaries too, so we’re not trying to do everything, all the time, all at once.
If you want to set (or review) your goals for 2025, I suggest you reflect on two things:
1) The strength of your systems.
2) The pain you are willing to endure.
My AH-HA Moment when reflecting on my 2024 goals
I recently had a total “AH-HA” moment when talking with my peer group of business owners about the outcome of our 2024 goals. Most of us had achieved some of our goals but failed at others. Many of us had set a few bad ones too. (For example, my goal of waking up at 5 am every day, like come on?!).
My revelation came as I reflected on what had worked for me and for others. Success or failure of achieving each goal came down to:
- The strength of our systems: The “how” you achieve your goals. The processes, resources, practices, and actions you repeat consistently to reach a goal.
- The “pain” we are willing to endure: The emotional and physical discomfort you are willing to endure to achieve a goal. This includes dealing with change, handling rejection or failure, or putting money, time, and energy, and other resources into making your goal a reality.
Pay attention to the strength of your systems.
My goal to “do more training” flopped big time this year because I had no system to make it a reality. As you can tell by the lack of specificity in the goal, I couldn’t visualize the system to make this work.
On the other hand, my goal of “maintaining my newsletters” was successful because I had a clear vision of what I wanted. I also had pre-established formats in place, specific ideas for experimenting the habit of writing regularly, and the assistance of my amazing strategist and editor Janet Goldstein .
I had another small goal of “coming up with a process for video.” Video is ubiquitous and easy, so this seems like a silly goal on the surface. But up until a year ago, I had almost a phobia around doing video because of past experience. I didn’t create my own video system from scratch in 2024, but I “borrowed” it from my friend Andrea Reindl and her team at Legacy Creative who create videos for their clients. So, yes, you can achieve a goal by taking someone else’s “system” and making it your own. (That’s not cheating, it’s called resourcefulness!)
Think of goals as the destination. But systems are the mechanics that get you there. Strong systems outperform the loftiest goals every single time. If you’re going in the right direction, the strength of your system will carry you forward, way past your New Year’s resolution.
From my experience and observation, below are the range of components that go into successful systems for your goals:
- Schedule and deadlines – I was a sporadic writer for years until I stuck to a regular (albeit not religious) schedule with set deadlines. As basic as it seems, how you schedule your time and the deadlines you set are the first and most critical parts of any system you are looking to launch or improve.
- Team or community – As they say, “If you want to go fast, go alone; If you want to go far, go together.” Truth be told, it’s hard to muscle through goals and habits day in and day out on our own. We need others – outside experts, team members, fans, family – to become part of our system in one way or another. Other than motivating us, the team and community prevent us from bottlenecking our systems.
- Physical location and environment – I started to expand my business after I moved my base office out of my busy house and into a rented office downtown. Ironically, when I moved my gym from downtown to home, I got better results the other way around. (And yes, the Peloton is an awesome piece of equipment to improve your fitness system.)
- Tools and technology – I am a big believer that processes and habits trump your tools. But technology, when used well, can be a big part of enabling successful systems. For many years, I managed sales and business development by spreadsheets, but it got to be too much. Over the last four years, I have adopted a CRM tool that has helped me manage my business more effectively as it becomes more complicated over time.
- Grasp on reality – While I’d love to drive across the city for an “ideal” workout at a fancy gym (like I used to do in my 20s), this will never happen with my schedule. So, I opt for the simpler pre-work (“P.J.”) workout instead. The best systems, in your work world and your personal life, are the most realistic.
As you reflect on your goals for 2025, and your personal and work systems and the results you want to achieve, here are some questions to think about:
- What are the systems you need to realize your 2025 goals? Which ones are you struggling to create?
- Which systems are working for you in your personal life? And which ones aren’t?
- Which systems are working for you at work or for your team? And which ones aren’t?
- What is one system you will focus on the most this year?
- What needs to change to improve this system – schedule and deadlines, team and community, physical location or equipment, sense of reality, efficiency, scale, repetition, scale, or other?
Consider the “pain” you can endure.
“Pain” is the dark side of achieving our goals that is rarely talked about in cheery, inspirational social media posts or in professional development circles. But it’s our biggest stumbling block for achieving our personal and professional goals and living our dreams.
I’ve had the goal of “debottlenecking my business” for many years. While I’ve made modest improvements over the years, I will admit to not doing as good of a job as I should for one reason: I am avoiding pain. It’s less painful for me to do what I’ve always done than to change my ways. In this case, it often means not making the effort to train people as well as I should. (For the record, I train people in my business a lot, but still not as much as I should be!)
However, my goal of doing more sales and business development in 2024 did pay off as I was much more willing to endure the discomfort of reaching out to past and new connections and risk the rejections of “nos”.
Now, the good news when it comes to pain: it’s often not forever. I used to hate doing sales calls, but I love them now. I used to hate writing content, but I really enjoy it now. I used to hate creating videos, but I have come to enjoy the process in the past year.
Unfortunately, this won’t work for all aspects of pain (I still hate administration). But this is a promising aspect of working through the sticky, grueling, testing, soul-searching parts of the goals on your list.
Below are the concepts I believe are a critical part of the “pain” we need to make our goals successful.
- Discomfort — If you want to lose 10 pounds, you are going to have to handle the discomfort that comes from foregoing that evening bag of chips or glass of Chardonnay. The same goes for your work goals. If you want to grow your business or your career, you have to endure the discomfort of putting yourself out there, having difficult conversations, asking for money, and potentially longer hours at the office.
- Change — In achieving goals that push us, we need to change our old ways of working and doing things. This is sort of what I am going through now with retooling my business with AI (which is a topic for another day).
- Rejection and failure — In my recent article on Rejection and Failure, I talk about how our ability to handle rejection and failure are essential for success in today’s world of knowledge work. Rejection and failure are part of the inevitable pain you find on the path to achieving something bigger and better for yourself.
- Money and resources — Many goals demand a financial investment especially if you run a business. If you want to get more clients, you might need to advertise. If you want to grow with great people on your team, you will need to pay more for your people. If you want to build your personal brand, you probably have to hire some help.
- Time and sacrifice – Goals require an investment of time and often giving up things you love (e.g., Netflix, video games, and Instagram scrolling).
As you reflect on your goals for 2025, and what you are excited to do or not, think about:
- What is the “pain” (discomfort, rejection and failure, resources) that you will need to endure to realize the goals you have set out?
- Are you prepared to endure this level of “pain”? Or is there a more reasonable threshold you can tolerate?
- What are aspects of yourself or old patterns or bad habits that you need to change for yourself in 2025?
- What are the resources you need (money, time, energy, people) you need to make your goals a reality?
- What is one area of “pain” that you hope to change into something you enjoy? Can you visualize a change in your attitude by the end of 2025?
Maybe the last thing you want this time of year is a serious talk about goals. But let’s face the New Year’s-music that goals can work for you if you work at them.
Start the New Year with confidence that you can handle what’s to come. And prepare! I want you to kick some butt in 2025. I want to kick butt too. If we are both going to do this, we will have to create the systems that will make them work and endure the pain that is needed to make them happen.
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VC, Entrepreneur, Author with a mission to challenge status quo to make the world a better place.
1wLoved this post. I particularly love the systems and willingness to endure the pain. Happy to reshare with my community as valuable insights as usual.
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2wThis is such a relatable and refreshing take on goal-setting! Your honesty about what worked and what didn’t (hello, 5 am wake-ups!) is a reminder that setting realistic, well-supported goals is just as important as aiming high. Your two points—building strong systems and being willing to endure discomfort—are spot on. Goals aren’t just about the outcome; they’re about the processes and resilience required to get there. It’s a powerful mindset shift that turns big aspirations into achievable milestones. Thank you for sharing this wisdom as we step into 2025. Here’s to creating better systems, embracing a little discomfort, and kicking butt together this year! Let’s make it happen! #goals2025 #growthmindset
I help Authors, Coaches and Leaders Make Ideas Happen | Brand Strategist | Fractional CMO | Speaker | Owner @ Legacy Creative
2wI was so glad to be part of this goal this year with you. I think that working together, creating systems and having an accountability buddy goes so far. Here's to more great videos and articles in 2025 🍾 - full of your brilliant ways of thinking.
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2wSetting realistic goals and building strong systems is key to success.
I help busy leaders design magnetic systems that drive growth.
2wI love that you talked about the pain of taking actions on our systems. Most people develop a system with good intention and then it falls to the wayside because they don’t have the tolerance to continue doing it every single time.