It’s tiiiiime. Making my yearly goals is one of my favorite traditions. It all gets started near the fourth quarter of the previous year when I start thinking about what I want my life to look like at the end of the next year. What are the big things I wanted to accomplish? How do I want to feel in November 2025? What are some fun goals that would make my year a little more magical? I start making a list of ideas in my Notes app as they come to me. Some of these goals make it to my official list and some do not. It’s all about visualizing and making a plan.
This year, I have five goals in five categories: Home, Adulting, Health, Hobbies, and Fun. I’ve also done something I’ve never done before: I’ve left a few goals TBD. I’ve seen other people do this and I don’t know why it has never occurred to me to do the same. I was struggling to think of a fifth goal in some of these categories so I just decided that I’d leave those blank for now. Hopefully, inspiration will strike at some point in the year and I’ll add a goal to that fifth spot. But if not, that’s okay, too! I don’t want to make a goal just to make a goal, which is what I’ve done in years past. This way, the goals on this list are ones that I feel strongly about. (Well, at least right now. I reserve the right to change them if needed!)
So, without further ado, let’s get into my 2025 goals!
HOME
1) Itemize everything in my home. I’m not always going to live in a third-floor apartment, so it’s a good time to make an itemized list of everything I own just in case I need to submit a claim for water damage/hurricane loss/etc. I’ve watched two friends go through this disaster scenario in 2024, and the itemization process is so arduous! I’d rather have the majority of it done before I need to worry about it.
2) Buy a new area rug, coffee table, bookshelf, and throw pillows. Once a quarter, I’d like to make one bigger household purchase, and these are the ones I’ve chosen! Each will cost between $100-$200 so these aren’t HUGE household purchases, but they will take some budgeting and planning.
3) Move to a two-bedroom apartment. Third time’s the charm? I’ve had this on my list for the last two years, but I am committed to making it happen in 2025.
4) Stick to a weekly cleaning routine. And maybe I’ll even make myself a sticker chart because nothing motivates me more than “If the whole chart is filled out, you can buy a new book!” Listen, I’m 37 and sometimes need to treat myself like a 7-year-old. It is what it is!
5) TBD
ADULTING
1) Change my primary email address. I’ve been using my blog’s email address for all of my personal emails, and it’s a little cringe to say it out loud to people. They’re always like, “Oh, are you a writer? What have you written?” Sigh. I’ll keep my blog email for blog stuff, but for things like bills, medical accounts, and things like that, I want to have a more professional-sounding email address. It’s kind of a hassle to change an email address for certain accounts (my mom just did this, and it’s not as seamless as you would think!), so making it a goal will ensure I get ‘er done.
2) Spend 50% less in online takeout from 2024. It’s well-known on this blog that I am a super consumer of Ubereats and other online takeout providers. Originally, I had a goal to go cold turkey from online takeout in 2025, but I think that’s just setting myself up for failure. Instead, I want to spend 50% less than I did in 2024, which would be a massive improvement. (I need to figure out the actual number I spent on online takeout in 2024, and once I do, I’ll have a concrete number to measure this goal by.)
3) Pay off my LASIK bill. I need to pay it off this year so I don’t start incurring interest!
4) Save $3,000 in my emergency savings. I’m going to gamify this for myself and use this challenge chart. There are 52 squares on the printable, so I’ll print out three of them and hang them up, then randomly choose one square from each sheet every week!
5) TBD
HEALTH
1) Improve my posture. I’m not sure what this will entail yet. Everything I read online about improving posture talks about stretches to help strengthen the muscles that cause bad posture. So maybe some stretches. Maybe a more supportive office chair or lumbar pillow. Maybe it’s being more mindful and doing regular check-ins on my posture via an app or something? I’m not sure but I’m open to ideas!
2) Lose 20 lbs. Listen, I’m not happy to have a weight loss goal on this list, but the truth of the matter is that I do need to lose weight because I am unhealthy at this weight. The sleep apnea diagnosis, the sciatica, the blood work do not lie. This equates to losing 5 lbs every quarter, which is entirely doable and small enough that I don’t feel like I have to completely overhaul my diet to make it happen.
3) Move my body every day. My goal is to make it to the gym five days a week (two HIIT classes, one spin class, one yoga class, and one cardio day using the machines) and then fill out the other two days with walks around my apartment complex.
4) Work on my daily routines. I really struggle with my daily routines and that’s because I live alone and work from home. I have a lot of flexibility built into my day and sometimes I take that too far. I’d like to work on having a solid morning and evening routine each day so that I can start my workday around 8 a.m. and get to bed at a decent hour (ideally, 10 p.m.).
5) TBD
HOBBIES
1) Read one 500+ page book every quarter. I tend to shy away from longer books because I’m afraid of getting “stuck behind them” (aka, not finishing any other books for weeks because the longer book is taking me so long to read). But there are a few doorstop books on my TBR I’d love to finally read this year, including The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher, 11/22/63 by Stephen King, and Fall of Giants by Ken Follett. Just need one more book to round out this quartet!
2) Go to at least 6 Silent Book Club meetings. I stopped going to Silent Book Club meetings sometime in early 2024. I just got out of the habit and then kept forgetting to put their meeting schedule in my calendar. Hopefully, having this goal will help me get back to SBC! I love being around other bookish people and having a concentrated hour to read my book.
3) Read 125 books. This will be a stretch goal for me and I don’t technically need to set a numeric reading goal, but I like to do so anyway. It’s okay if I don’t reach this goal, but I’d like to try.
4) Remove all the spammy links that have been added to my blog. My blog got hacked sometime in 2023 and it was just in the last few months that I noticed that all of these spam links have been added to some of my blog posts. I don’t know the best way to do this other than manually. (I may be able to use Google Search Console, but I just set that up a few days ago and I’m still waiting on the data to be processed.) This will be a big blog goal for 2025, in any event!
5) Complete the Taylor Swift reading challenge. Bri clued me into this reading challenge and I am… ready for it! Tehehe. This looks like a super fun reading challenge to complete!
FUN
1) Watch four movies – one from 1987, one from 1988, one from 1989, and one from 1990. I don’t know where I got the idea for this goal, but I have decided that I’d like to watch one movie from every year I’ve been alive. But since I don’t want to set myself up for failure, I’m only going to challenge myself to watch four movies this year (from my first four years of life!), so one per quarter. That feels doable!
2) Take a Virgin Voyages cruise. My mom and I are dying to try our first Virgin Voyages cruise. We have heard nothing but rave reviews, so it’s something we’re hoping to do to celebrate her 60th birthday this year.
3) Watch the entirety of these series: Suits, New Girl, and a TBD series. I have the first seasons of both Suits and New Girl under my belt, but I need to watch the rest of the series. I am not great about watching series TV (give me strategy reality competitions any day!), but I would like to be. I’m hoping to finish another TV series while I’m at it, but I’m not sure which one I want yet. Suggestions welcome!
4) Repierce my nose. I mentioned yesterday that I had to remove my nose ring when I started using the CPAP because my mask was irritating it. I’m hoping it was just due to my face getting used to the mask, not because one cannot have a nose piercing and use a CPAP mask. I want to get my nose repierced this year (once you remove a nose ring, the hole closes up quick).
5) Do one new thing every month. This can be anything I want it to be but I want to challenge myself to spend more time outside the four walls of my apartment and do some new things in 2025. It could be visiting a new-to-me bookstore, going to a new-to-me brunch spot, going to a painting class, taking a new workout class. I just want to do one new thing every month! (Side note: I hope I’m not jinxing 2025 because this was a goal I had in 2020 and, well, we all know how that turned out.)
What’s something you’re hoping to accomplish in 2025?
Happy New Year, Stephany! We are very similar goals!
1. Lose weight x commit to gym x EAT VEGETABLES- I’ll say lose 30 lbs? I’ve spent a lot of $ over last few months buying every download in sight from dietians on the Internet lol. I’m not a great cook, I hate cooking, I live by myself and inevitably make too much of a meal I never liked in first place, I love Doordash, the list goes on. Commit to gym – I live by myself and need to get out more! I went to a strength gym for like 3 months this year and they were all so sweet and supportive. I hate being bad at something in public so it was tough being the beginner who could barely lift anything where the coaches had to stay glued to my side to tell me what to do. Work got busy, I stopped going, and I want to go again but now I kinda have to start all over and be the beginner again. My actions have consequences, who knew 😉
2. Budgeting & limited spending! This is a priority starting the inauguration and is very needed, I have spent a lot of money over the last few months. A very good motivation is making sure my superfluous purchases aren’t letting Musk, Trump, Vance, MAGAs take any credit for the good economy they are inheriting! lol, even if my inflated spend is barely even a drop in the bucket, this is what I can control! (This is within reason of course, I’m not going to starve to make a point that no one but me will know about!)
3. Cleaning routine – Same as you. I function so much better when my house is clean but I HATE actually cleaning it.
Girl, are we twins? Because we are struggling with the same things and I HEAR YOU! If you need an accountability buddy, I volunteer as tribute. Ha. It’s so hard to just commit to these new routines. And cooking for one is not fun. I wish I enjoyed cooking more but I really don’t, and it’s such a big struggle for me.
I love this line, “A very good motivation is making sure my superfluous purchases aren’t letting Musk, Trump, Vance, MAGAs take any credit for the good economy they are inheriting!” WHAT A GREAT POINT! This will help me be more frugal. 😉
Hi Stephany,
New reader here! I miss old school blogs that do personal updates and I somehow came across yours about a week ago while searching.
I ended up reading a to of your travel posts (I’m a full-time blogger myself and I used to love reading other travel blogs!) and I actually noticed some of the spammy hacked links you mentioned.
They appear to all be casino and gambling links so if you search your blog for “casino” you should be able to find a lot of them in your cruise posts where you mention going to the casino. Hope this helps!
– D
Hi D! Thanks for reading and commenting. <3 I love old school blogging, too, and I'm glad you found me!
Thanks for the tip about the travel posts - I'm going to do exactly that to try to get some of those spam links out of the way ASAP. Appreciate you!
I have started SO MANY of those 30-day improve your posture guides and stopped doing them in four or five days. LOL. I wonder if they would be helpful if I ever followed through. It’s a nice place to start for figuring out what WILL help posture anyway.
I have been working on my 2025 and one of my reading goals is to read big books (>500 pages) this year, too! We’re twins! Because I always try to focus on reading more books written by women, it’s been hard to find books that work for this, but I’m up for the challenge. Up first: Gone with the Wind!
Ohhh, I need to see about those 30-day posture guides. It just feels more natural to be all slumpy at my desk but then I wonder why I have so many back issues, ha.
Good point about longer books that are written by women – I should make sure my fourth book is one written by a woman since the other two I’ve slotted in are written by men!
I love this list! I’d like to join you in the one 500 page each quarter challenge. Actually I just want to read more longer/deeper books without quantifying the number of pages. I read 11/22/63 last year and was blown away. My possible TBR for this is the Ken Follett trilogy that Engie/Jenny raved about and The Shining by Stephen King.
I copied you and went to a couple of Silent Bookclub meetings last year, and then once we got the puppy that fell by the wayside. The only reason I’m not itching to go back now is that the meetings were kind of early on Saturdays, which isn’t a super convenient time for me. But I might go to a few.
Yes to the “leaving the house” goal – I used to be so negative about where I live and once I got my nose out of the door and started seeing what was out there, I was hooked.
I can’t wait to read 11/22/63! I’ve heard so many rave reviews. I am VERY intimidated by the length of Fall of Giants, but maybe I’ll make a reading plan for it and let it take me as long as I need it to (well, as long as I finish it by the end of 2025, ha).
The timing of Silent Book Club meetings can be so tricky! Ours meets on Sunday afternoons, which is a bit easier than Sunday mornings. They also do an evening meeting once a month, which I’m usually able to make work.
Happy New Year. I hope 2025 will be a wonderful one.
Your list reads is fun. So many cool things on there. Good things that a fun but also things that are hard and challenge. Great mix. I need to put more fun things on my list I think. I especially love the “new thing a month”.
Also your fitness goals are inspiring me. I also need to do more and move daily. But I am too lazy to do the gym thing. I don’t have a car and I really don’t feel like taking the bus to the gym. So I have to motivate myself. Fingers crossed. I may join in the 20 pound game. I never wanted to have such a goal on my blog either but it starts to impact my health so I need to do something about it. Sigh.
So here is to us crushing our goals in 2025.
My posture is terrible but correcting it doesn’t sound like fun, so it won’t go on my list this year (everything is FUN this year)…but maybe I can aim for some micro-improvements in this area.
This is a great list of goals. Let me know when you read 11/22/63. We could buddy read it! I have wanted to read it for a long time!!
I also want to lose some weight this year. I have put on weight thanks to prednisone and hate how I feel in my body. For me, I need to dial in my eating and eat way less ice cream. I really want Phil to stop buying the kind I like but he’s resistant because he sees that I am such a disciplined person, and yet I can’t be disciplined about ice cream. Sigh. It’s my kryptonite.
Ooooh I love the variety of your goals! I can’t wait to read along with you this year.
I don’t mind a long book IF it moves along. I think it was Wellness that I read last year that could have been easily cut by a third without affecting anything.
I have a big goal, to do with editing my manuscript, and I tend to pick up a variety of little goals throughout the year. So I’m not sure yet what those will be! But you can bet they will be something dumb like “buy new bras.”
Oh! I know! One thing that is an evergreen, every month goal for me is to make mindful consumption decisions. Usually I’m pretty good with this but sometimes the spending goes a little wild, you know?
Great goals! I have a question about itemizing the contents of your home…how are you going to do that? I think my cousin was going to walk around with her phone and document on video. We haven’t done that and we probably should. If something happens, how would we prove our claim?
Happy New Year, friend! I’m still formulating my goals list for 2025, but I love reading other goals to get motivated! If you need another 500+ page book, I highly recommend All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker, one of my favorites of the year. I also tend to read shorter length books so I hope to tackle The Covenant of Water this year.