How to make 2025 a Game-changing year!

In the penultimate week of 2024, I got the opportunity to participate in the Leadership Masterclass that my coach and mentor Gautam Gouthi facilitated. Gautam is known to me for over 15 years now, having attended his leadership session in Sep 2009, during my TCS days. Gautam is one of the finest leadership coaches in India and is an even finer human being.

In this session, he shared with us the secrets of making 2025 a game-changing year! I am summarizing what we learnt from the session. This could be useful for anyone looking to set personal or professional goals for the coming year.

There are three M’s which if one could master, can help one achieve the goals set out for the year : ?Magic + Mindset + Map

Magic : How to create magic in your life in 2025?

What are those goals that you always want to achieve and that can create magic in your life?

1. List down the top 3 goals for 2025. (This is primarily to prioritize. If you have just one goal, that’s also cool). Rank these goals on a scale of 1-10 (1 being the lowest). Pick the goal(s) with a score of 8 and above.
2. Make the goals absolutely granular, so that they can become measurable.
3. Involve your emotions in the achievement of these goals. For example, if your goal is to reduce your weight by 10 KG by the end of 2025, think of the impact it would have on your loved ones. If you parents/kids/spouse, feel proud that you have become healthier/leaner, would that be an emotion you want to connect the goal with? (Remember that goal do not move us, emotions do).
4. Reward yourself through the journey. To take the above example forward, as you continue to lose weight, keep rewarding yourself for the success.
5. Make a list of people (family, friends, colleagues) and include them in the celebrations.

Mindset : ?In order to achieve different results, you need different behaviour. And different behaviour results from different mindset.

Your mindset is a set of beliefs that shape how you make sense of the world and yourself.

Ask yourself - What are your current beliefs regarding your goals of 2025? List 3 such beliefs. (Example, if I ask you today about your weight loss goal and whether you believe that you can achieve it, how would you respond? Would you say, “maybe I can achieve it”, or “ I will try my best to achieve it.”)

Now Ask yourself - What are three new beliefs that you want in order to achieve the goals of 2025. ( your new beliefs would be a blend of “?? ?? ?????? ??” plus your emotions (that we discussed in point #3 in Magic)

Hardwire the mindset :

1. Visualize and affirm (keep seeing yourself as yourself with a 10 KG less weight with a leaner, healthier body)
2. Reward the behaviour (as you continue to achieve your goal, keep rewarding yourself )
3. Keep acknowledging

Map : Like a navigation map, this Map would help us navigate to our 2025 goal. It will also help set the milestones on the path to achievement of our goal.

To best leverage this map, following three steps would help:

1. Make the goal so micro/granular that if you fail to achieve it, you feel embarrassed. Let’s take the weight loss example and build on it further. If you have decided that you will take a walk/run every day, rather than putting a time/distance goal – keep a consistency goal. Every day, I will walk/run. Be it for 100 m or 10 Km. If I am not able to do so, I feel embarrassed.
2. Cut down the distractions. ( Watching your weight would mean eating healthier. It also means eating less/no unhealthy food. One of the ways to achieve this is to simply stop buying and storing such food at home).
3. Create positive nudges. (make it easy to opt for positive choices – for example, keep healthy food in the visibility/accessibility such that you can opt for it when you feel the hunger).

I am personally setting out with the 3Ms to achieve the goals of 2025. If you are up for the challenge, do share your views and let's together make 2025 a game-changing year!!

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