2 principles for your 2025 goals

I’m going into my third January as a Personal trainer.

I love the gym in January. It gives off a sphere of hope and determination. It’s the time of year when you think about who you want to become and visualize the most positive version of yourself. I think goal-setting is fun and love having conversations about them to understand others better.

However, I think we generally suck at goal-setting.

Let me explain why (and how you can get better at it).

In 2019, the running app Strava announced that a significant decrease was visible in the app’s total logged workouts on the year’s second Friday. Since then, we’ve been calling this day “Quitter’s Day.” It’s the reason gyms are quiet again by February.

This year, I came prepared for goal-setting season.

So let me explain 2 principles that I use in goal-setting.

1: Use outcome goals for direction. Use process goals for behavior.

You don’t only set goals for where to go, you also should set goals for how to get there.

Outcome goals focus on the result or the achievement of a specific target.
Process goals focus on the actions or behaviors needed to achieve a desired outcome

So which one do you choose?

Outcome goals help you endure the toughness of the process because you have your end goal in mind. Process goals help you set specific behaviors for a sustainable route toward the end goal.

Both have their benefits and downsides. So use them complementary.

2: Choose the right level of challenge.

Performance psychology research deems “difficult” as an important criterion for an effective goal. We work harder for the goals that are further out of our reach, therefore, we progress further.

However, this idea is more nuanced in practice.

The more difficult the goal is, the higher the chance of failure becomes. Even though failure is inherent to the process of development, it can also lead to quitting behavior quite easily. Quitter’s Day is the day that the first failure is reached.

The question is: how well can you deal with failure in this goal pursuit?

Do you want to challenge yourself to extremes and accept the failure? Set difficult goals.
Do you want to build momentum and flow without hurdles? Set easy goals.

While remembering a difficult goal pushes us to progress more, easy goals have their use as well.

What level of challenge do you need?

There’s so much more to tell about goal-setting.

I could talk about it for 40 minutes and 52 seconds without stopping.

So that’s what I did.

Check out my High Achiever’s 2025 Goal Guide Podcast if you’re curious about what frameworks to use to make your 2025 goals January-proof.