The only resolution for 2025

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It’s the moment in the year when our lives make a sudden about-turn. From the unstructured stupor of the holiday season, we emerge with renewed tenacity. The coming twelve months will represent an exercise in self-mastery, and the full force of our professional potential will be realised here. More so, given that we’ve arrived at the dramatic mid-point of the decade. New years’ resolutions rarely unfold the way we’d like, but for now, it’s essential to believe. After all, optimism is fundamentally important for creative work – and cynicism is fatal.

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Here's a suggestion for 2025. And it’s more achievable than that tortuous gym routine you were planning. I implore you to throw significant effort into having ideas. New ones. Fresh ones. The sort that capture imagination, and ensure that your brand continues to drive conversations this year. Marketers have spent much of this decade obsessing over data and trying to anticipate consumer behaviour. But the greatest businesses don’t predict the future: they create it.

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One definition of an ‘idea’ in the pages of the Oxford English Dictionary is: “A thought or plan formed by mental effort”. The last two words in this line are worth paying attention to. Some ideas spring forth from the well of our subconscious. Others require some work upfront. In both instances, they need developing when they show up. Ideas are the great leveller. They don’t require equipment, money, or a smart office. They represent the means to out-manoeuvre the competition, corner markets, or unearth new ones. Crucially: they allow you to imagine the future that your audience would like to live in.