Why I think online business owners should DREAM for the New Year (Vs setting New Years Resolutions)

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I think 2025 is the year to thrive!

New Year's resolutions. It's all the rage right now, as it usually is this time of year. 

Setting New Year's goals can feel intimidating. Would you agree with me on that? This is probably why a lot of people just don't bother. They're like, nah, I'm not doing that. They’ve never worked before… 

Some possible reasons I think resolutions are intimidating are:

• it's hard to narrow down all the things you could do in a year

• It's sometimes overwhelming to figure out how to make changes

• it's confusing to determine when you will work on the goals because you might feel like starting on all of them at the same time. (That never works.) That's actually my biggest issue with resolutions and goal setting is that I want to do them all right away. Once I've decided what I want to do, I want to do them all right now, and that doesn't work.

• there's so much talk about how many people never follow through and how many people give up on their goals before the month of January is even over.

It does kind of makes you feel like, why bother?

Those reasons aren’t very motivating, right? 

I propose that instead of New Year's goals or resolutions, what if we call them New Year's dreams? Just take away the whole negative mindset around goals and resolutions and let's call them New Year's DREAMS.

That just feels more hopeful to me than resolutions or goals which get such a bad rap.

So call them what you want…but it’s that time to think about what you would love to see happen this year. 

I want to kind of walk through what it might look like to dream for the year, and then also help you to understand how you might break them down to make those dreams come true.

First Step for the new year is to DREAM.

Take some time; think about what you would LOVE to see happen this year. Set some time aside to dream if you a haven’t already this year. 

Why is dreaming beneficial? 

I looked into dreaming (as an alternative to goal setting) a little bit for you. Dreaming is important, according to researchers, for many reasons including these two:

1. Dreaming can increase your motivation and commitment to your desired future. So if you're setting goals or resolutions, that is your desired future. Taking some time to dream about that can really help you to be more motivated to move in that direction.

2. Dreaming can increase your creativity according to the Future Minds Lab. They say that neuroscience research suggests that mind wandering, aka dreaming, can enhance creative problem solving abilities. And, if you're dreaming about the new year, your brain is naturally going to start processing and trying to figure out HOW you might actually reach those dreams.

3. In an article at Forbes Online, they say that dreaming increases our sense of well-being and pain tolerance. (I’m not really sure how the pain tolerance part fits in so you'll have to read the article to learn more) 

What if you took time to daydream? 

What if you said “What if” to yourself and just see what comes up to mind?

I love Marie Forleo. I learned this idea from her and she suggests to journal regularly “wouldn’t it be cool if…”. 

You fill in the blank. What if that something happened in your business or in your life that you've been dreaming of?

I want to encourage you to do some New Year dreaming.

Write those dreams down and write down how you think you'll feel when those dreams come true. You know we don't really know how you're going to feel. But write down how you think you're going to feel when those dreams come true.

Second Step is to write them down and pick a FEW of those dreams to bring to life in 2025. 

Yes - A FEW. We can't do all the things all at the same time. If you reach for too many dreams all at once, you’ll be overwhelmed, stressed, and you probably will quit or give up. We can't do all the things. Just pick a few most important dreams that you want to focus on, and let's bring those to life in 2025.

I've been dreaming about 2025 since late November and early December, just jotting things down in my OneNote, digital note app. I’ve been jotting down my thoughts and dreams for the year personally and professionally and organizing them by categories like personal relationships, finances, health, and business dreams/ideas, things like that. 

Third Step is to Break Down the dreams into possible quarters to work on them. 

What do you need to do next? You’re going to break those few dreams that you've chosen, maybe four or five and probably no more than seven, into possible quarters of the year to focus on them. 

You're not really setting them as New Year's goals yet. You're really just seeing if it's possible to fit those few those 3 or 4 dreams into a year based on the information you have right now. 

You're going to map it out to when you would like to focus on a particular dream or implement that dream to see if it's even possible to focus on those few this year. Map it out and see how you feel. 

Is it possible to reach that dream or reach for that dream based on the time, commitment, and dedication you're willing to give and that you have for that dream right now? 

Which of your dreams can truly be achieved in one year?

That's ultimately what you're getting at - deciding which ones can be achieved this year. Of course, you don't know for sure. This is what you're deciding for now, for you, what feels best. 

Fourth Step is to break down the dreams you CAN achieve into months. 

You can't focus on all of them all at the same time. They can't all be in quarter one. And there might be a couple that would actually need to be focused on the entire year.

On a sheet of paper put 12 boxes and map out when you’re focusing on which dream.  

Then finally you’ll use those monthly plans for your weekly and daily planning so that at the end of the year, you’ve reached those dreams OR you're closer to them than you’ve ever been before! 

I know this all sounds too simple, right?

I know that it's not easy. It's not that easy to achieve your dreams and your goals, but it is simple to break them down to make them achievable.

Write down a plan that can be your first step. Just take that simple step to write it down. 

Write down how you're going to feel when you reach that dream. 

Write down the breakdown for the quarter and then the months, make a plan. 

How will you ever get close to the dream if you don't start with a plan?

This is the process that I'm currently in. It's what I'm doing to set my 2025 dreams into motion. 

Dream big, break it down, and take it week by week to achieve the goal.

What what dreams do I want to reach for this year?

I'm deciding that right now. And when I look back at 2024, I can see that that I achieved several goals, several dreams, even though they didn't happen in the time frame that I dreamt of initially.

• The On Purpose Planner was officially born around March of 2024.

• I relaunched Limitless Business Online around April after moving to FG Funnels platform software platform Feb-April.

• Recorded 8 Pod(casts)/blogvlogs in 2024 and I'm planning for at least 30 in 2025.

• I created and launched 4 or 5 freebies for online business owners while learning FG Funnels

• and I created and launched the Launch Lift program to help online business owners launch their offers with ease and excellence.

This is the exciting part you’ll get to do at the end of 2025! 

When you look back at the year and see those dreams, those goals, that actually did come true, that you did reach, it's just so exciting!

My dreams for myself, personally and professionally aren't nearly reached yet, but I can see that I'm making progress. And that's what I want for you as well. 

Time for a shameless plug for The Quarterly On Purpose Planner!

The on purpose planner will help you to stay on track and bring those dreams to life.

This planner follows the process that I've just explained and it will help you set those yearly Dreams or “goals” and walk you through setting quarterly plans. 

The planner guides you to set quarterly objectives, which are sometimes called quarterly goals, and then you get to decide “key results” to achieve those objectives.

As a recap of the “dreams to life” process: set those yearly dreams, break them down into quarters and then into months. In the quarter you’ll set the objectives to move you toward reaching that dream, and then you set key results to reach the objectives.

Key results are either tasks or little mini projects to achieve the quarterly objective. The quarterly objective was what you already decided - this is the dream/goal as you broke it down in step one.

The objectives don't change during your quarter, but the key results might change. Key Results are the things that you can control and that you do in order to reach the objective. They might change over the quarter if you're not gaining traction or increasing momentum toward reaching the objective (the objective being in line with the Dream for the year) so you might choose to go a different route to get to that objective. But remember, the key results are the only parts that you actually can control. Key results are like your input or the input that you do in order to achieve the output or the objective. 

In the On purpose planner, you're prompted to review objectives and key results every week so that you keep them top of mind and you can decide what you need to do each day and week to get closer to the dreams. 

Even though reading through this “dreams to life” process might be a little confusing, this process helps me feel less intimidated with goal setting or New Year's resolutions.

I want to encourage you to take that time to dream. Will you take that time to think, pray, and dream - to decide what dreams you're shooting for for this year?

If you're an online business owner, I'm sure you've already been dreaming. That's what we do. We continue to dream, right? That's not the hardest part at all, is it? 

It's the breaking down and it's the staying focused part that is the hardest. 

What do you think? I'm curious. What do you think about using quarterly objectives and key results? I'd love to hear from you at [email protected].

I hope New Year Dreaming helps you decide where you’re headed in 2025. 

If you want some help staying on track to reach those dreams, get yourself an on purpose planner, a sample planner to try it, or go through the Life Purpose Based Goal Setting Workshop for free! 

The On Purpose Planner 

• With the planner comes a 90 minute pre-recorded workshop called Life Purpose Based Goal Setting. That workshop will walk you through all that I've shared here. It also has a downloadable workbook to really walk you through, dreaming and breaking it down, and setting those quarterly goals to reach those dreams. 

On Purpose Planner free five day sample

90 minute Life Purpose Based Goal Setting workshop (valued at $45) for free 

Happy New Year and let’s make your online business and personal dreams a reality in 2025, the year to thrive!