Reverse Engineering Your Primary Goal For 2025

What New Year's Resolutions Miss

It’s New Year’s Day and I’m thinking over my plans.

I look at each year as a purpose in itself.

Each one is a chapter in your life; the mystery is that you don’t know what happens in advance.

Some years push and pull you, rendering your efforts to shape them mere afterthoughts.

Much that determines you is beyond your control.

But you do have a chance to shape it.

You can accept that things vibrate to their own pulse while still determining to affect them.

For me, it helps to give each year a singularity of purpose.

What is the one thing I want to do this year?

The question becomes:

How can you safeguard this intention in the face of life’s randomness?

What we want to do is an expression of our will.

It is called will because this intention is the area we must fight for — or rather, protect.

Life will lead us astray.

Financial reality will demand that you exchange what you want to do for what you have to do.

You can guarantee you’ll be blown off course.

And that as soon as you stray, you’ll feel separated from the intention that felt so easy before it was challenged.

When you get lost, you have to deal with the here and now, and all predetermined goals feel utterly irrelevant.

At a glance, life is putting out fires.

You’re in survival mode, and just to go forward is all that matters, goals be damned!

It’s in this staging area that we meet ourselves.

Sometimes, our task is to adapt to life and accept that the map we designed so diligently no longer fits the new terrain.

But equally, in the challenge, we have the opportunity to show ourselves who we are.

Showing who we are is about staying true to the course we have in our hearts, even when life blows us far from our intended route.

In these times, I remind myself:

Can I stay true to my intended destination despite how lost I’ve become?

Knowing this — that I will likely get blown off course — gives me an opportunity.

How can I prepare for the storm?

Right now, as 2025 begins, your boat is in the harbour.

What are you putting on it to prepare for your voyage?

What I like to do is reverse engineer the goal.

Here’s how I do it:

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The Five Steps

Step 1:
Know Your Primary Purpose

Though I may have many subgoals, I essentially see them as irrelevant. Much more important is my primary purpose.

What is the one thing you will do, no matter what life may throw at you?

For instance, I knew I wanted to write and record 12 new songs last year. I knew that life would overwhelm me —as it did—but by having clarity of purpose, I could stay true to my course. 

Step 2:
What’s Your North Star?

I’ve learned that being overambitious with multiple big projects risks not completing any within a year.

What helps is to be childishly clear.

At any given moment, on any given day, I want to know — what is my year’s North Star.

When you feel lost, hurt, or tested by life, remember the one thing that can guide you.

By seeing it, it draws you towards it.

Last year, I was carried by the fact that I reverse-engineered the goal: if I was going to write and record 12 songs, I needed to go into the studio every two months with two new songs.

When things overwhelmed, that was the default route — and it kept me on track when wayward.

Step 3
Create a System

As 2025 dawns, my one goal is to release the material I have recorded in 2024.

I am making this my primary goal because I am a terrible hoarder. My instinct is never to release but always to create — and the danger is that I don’t get my work out because I’ve already moved on to the next shiny project.

This year, I am protecting myself by making my goal the act of release itself.

Truthfully, that is as far as I’ve got! I’ve been so concentrated on completing client work and finishing the album that I have not yet created my system.

However, knowing my primary aim will help me work on a system of release and rule out the many factors clamouring to distract me from it.

Step 4
Rough Out the Basics

You don’t need a perfect plan — but you can rough out the basics and use that as a starting point.

We’re often intimidated by the idea of building a system.

Instead, rough out the basics and iterate it later.

That’s what I’m doing this morning — roughing out a plan that will give me guidelines for what I do each month.

Here’s what I’ve jotted down to get me started.

• 1 song released a month over 12 months

• A self-shot music video for each song

• A YouTube video exploring the creative process of each song

• Make a schedule plan for social media

• Build it in public

These will help me when I’m going through a period of doubt — which is part and parcel of releasing anything!

Step 5
Make It Fun!

Too often nowadays, there is an icy coldness about how we talk about goals and systems — as if they are only designed to prevent our lazy nature from overtaking our dreams.

I don’t look at it this way.

My system of release is designed so that I don’t have to worry about what I’ll do every month and every day.

If I can remove the ifs and buts by having the practical steps in place, then three things happen:

• First, I have fixed the problem of motivation on a cold Monday morning—it’s clear what I need to do. Now, get moving and do it!

• Second, I can then start on the real point of a system: learning new stuff and figuring things out along the way.

• Third, I can find ways to challenge the limitations that every artistic project has baked into it (financial, publicity, support) and then start having fun finding creative solutions.

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CONCLUSION

To conclude, I am all for New Year’s Resolutions — but too often, we have too much on our lists.

By chasing too many things, one thing starts negating another.

The reality is that we have limited time and limited energy — and it’s useful to acknowledge this in advance.

By recognising our primary goal for the year, we can be far more intentional about the other goals.

Why not make each sub-goal service the main goal?

For instance, I’m enjoying gradually working on a YouTube channel, but it’s an extended play in life. Rather than choosing between the release and the YouTube channel, I can link the two and use YouTube to support the release. Therefore, any work I do for it is not a distraction but a time used strategically, allowing me to work on what is essentially a hobby at this stage.

I’m wishing you all love and luck on your next steps — and remember, at the start — try reverse engineering it!

Jim

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