How to set goals, change habits, and achieve your New Year’s resolutions in 2025

A new year brings new opportunities.

No matter what your plans are for 2025, it pays to dream big, much like Evelyn Waugh writes in Decline and Fall (also available on Audible):

Aim high. You probably won’t get what you want but you may get something; aim low and you get nothing at all.

For more inspiration, here are some of my favourite Seth Godin quotes from his 2024 blog posts, together with a recommended title from Blinkist.

Don’t worry so much about the end of the journey. The focus at the beginning is simply to make a step possible. ~ Looking for a handle

Learn more: Start Now, Get Perfect Later

If you need perfect visibility into the future, you’re limiting the impact and power of your work. ~ Comfortable with the fuzziness

Learn more: Burn the Boats

“Just a little more,” might be a useful way to self-motivate, until it isn’t. ~ The challenge of N + 1

Learn more: Feel Good Productivity

Once we acknowledge that taking initiative (which is more accurately described as ‘offering initiative’) requires effort, we can allocate the time and resources to do it well. ~ Decisions as effort

Learn more: How Big Things Get Done

Persistent commitment to slightly better on a regular schedule inexorably makes a difference over time. ~ Incrementally better

Learn more: Leading an Inspired Life

Promises are difficult to keep and ought to be offered with that in mind. Doing our best is assumed. ~ Promises and our best

Learn more: Big Goals

The best way to make things better is to begin. Create the conditions for others to join you. Persist. ~ Toward better

Learn more: My Philosophy for Successful Living

There’s a lot to be said for showing up, one foot in front of the other. ~ The steep part of the mountain

Learn more: Never Play It Safe

Tread lightly, but make a difference. ~ Ice sculpture

Learn more: Rhinoceros Success

We thrive when we find a goal and a metric that’s resilient and easily replenished. It turns out that making a contribution is something we can do, again and again, and it never gets old. ~ Choose your fuel wisely

Learn more: Life Worth Living

When the person you could have been meets the person you are becoming, is it going to be a cause for celebration or heartbreak? ~ The inevitable meeting

Learn more: The School of Greatness