Setting Up for Success in 2025

Intentional Goal Setting & Time Management

Roslyn McLarty
January 07, 2025

Hi there,

Happy New Year! I hope you had a fun and restorative holiday.

I spent the holidays on Siesta Key with my family and partner, playing beach volleyball, bingeing the Throne of Glass series (same author as ACOTAR, IYKYK) and finalizing the details for my wedding taking place down there in two short months.

I took a full 10 days off and knew I was feeling rested when I couldn’t wait till we were back to start writing my 2025 business plan and this newsletter lol!

I love that new year new energy feeling that January brings, and I also know that it can be hard to sustain that energy around our ambitious plans throughout the year.

So today I’ll be sharing:

The goal setting and time management systems I’ll be implementing this year to keep me devoted to my mission, vision and goals.
As a recovering burnt out person, how I’m incorporating rest, balance, intuition, surrender and a respect for the seasons and cycles into my approach.
My favorite expander that I’ve learned so much from on this topic (and whose 2025 business plan template I used — scroll to Expanders for how to get your hands on it).

Before we dive in, I’m going to be hosting a free online event next week about how to achieve more and burn out less in 2025. I’d love for you to join us! Sign up here.

🌊 Where we go deep on a topic at the intersection of entrepreneurship and personal development.

THE VALUE OF GOAL SETTING & TIME MANAGEMENT

Why is intentional goal setting and time management key for preventing burnout?

Without clarity on your mission, vision, strategy and goals and how the work you’re sitting down to do everyday ladders up to those, you’re likely setting yourself up for overwork.

When we’re not clear and intentional about how we use our time, it’s easy to fall into the pattern of being reactive, chasing our to-do lists, and of working hard without feeling like we’re accomplishing anything at all.

I know because I’ve been there. Losing a half day to answering emails and slacks when there was more impactful work to be done. Mindlessly going down a to-do list only to find myself no closer to my goals at the end of the week.

And this can be amplified when you’re a leader and have a team that needs to be aligned to your company’s greater strategy. Not only is your own productivity not being maximized but your team lacks clarity and direction.

This can be quite the recipe for burnout. Working hard but accomplishing little can lead to feelings of inadequacy, guilt, shame, stress, anxiety and an inability to rest. As we burn out, it can start to get even harder to see the big picture, let alone to care about it.

As someone who’s burnt out and who’s suffered from chronic fatigue, getting intentional about my goal setting and ruthless with my time management isn’t a nice-to-have for getting a business off the ground. It’s a necessity.

Today I’m sharing how I set my goals for 2025 and how I’ll be managing my time and energy to achieve them. AND how I’m intentionally incorporating rest, seasonality and surrender into my approach.

START FROM THE TOP

In order to ensure the work you’re doing everyday is meaningful and impactful, start the planning from the very top — with your mission, vision and values. Then filter down into annual goals and quarterly milestones, and then further into monthly, weekly and daily tasks, projects and check-ins.

MISSION, VISION, VALUES

Many of us set our mission, vision and values when we start our company and leave them as is for the long haul. But it’s important to check in every year to see if they still resonate with us. We grow and evolve and learn so much every year.

Our work will be the most impactful, and we’ll be most effective, when we’re feeling deeply aligned to it. So start this exercise by checking in and making any updates to your mission, vision and values based new learnings, ways you’ve evolved, changes to your broader context, or ways you’re called to expand or shift your impact.

Vision

Your vision statement should describe your long-term goal, the big impact that you’re hoping to have on the world.

Mine is: To create a world where the most successful and impactful companies are built by purpose-led entrepreneurs, leading with integrity, intuition and compassion.

Mission

Your mission describes the current purpose and actions that you’re taking to reach that long term vision.

Mine is: Through 1:1 coaching, real and actionable content, and aligned community, I help founders and leaders clarify their visions, unlock their superpowers, and lead their companies to success while living more meaningful lives and without burning out.

Values

Values are your fundamental beliefs that guide your actions and decisions. When you’re faced with a challenge or hard decision, values are what you can come back to help guide you in a way that feels in integrity.

My 2025 values are: purposeful impact, creative expression, authentic connection, and personal growth & holistic wellbeing.

Your turn! What are your vision, mission and values for this year?

ANNUAL GOALS

Next are your annual goals: what do you want to accomplish this year? Remember, your annual goals should reflect the ‘why’ you determined in your mission, vision and values.

If you set your goals without having an aligned WHY for setting them, you risk setting goals based on ego or culture (e.g. businesses of my stage and size should be doing ‘x’ revenue’).

When you set your goals from a place that’s rooted in your values, you’re better aligning the work you’ll be doing all year to what feels in integrity for you.

Striving for ego-based goals puts us in the energy of hustling, grinding, striving for what we think will validate us in our society (and it makes work feel harder and less fun).

Calling in values-aligned goals allows us to be in the energy of attracting what we want from a more aligned, embodied, and magnetic place. It orients us towards how we can be of service — to our customers, to our team, to society.

Now of course you can and should also have financial goals. And it can be helpful to check in on why you want this? What does that revenue or profit allow you, your team, and your company to do? How will having financial abundance bring you closer to your authentic self?

The manifester in me likes to write these goals in the present tense as if they’ve already occurred. You can try this prompt. “It’s December 31, 2025 and this past year I’ve accomplished the following:”.

For example, it’s December 31, 2025, and I have:

Consistently sold out my 1:1 coaching spots and hit a $20K monthly revenue. Why? This means I’ve been providing high quality coaching services where my clients are experiencing deep transformation, that my services are garnering referrals and testimonials, and that I’ve been pricing at a point that feels in integrity for me and that allows me to resource myself to continue growing my impact. These are connected to my values of purposeful impact & holistic wellbeing.
Launched some form of digital community, course or combination thereof Why? It comes back to my values of purposeful impact & authentic connection. So that I can offer my learnings and services at a more accessible price point than 1:1 coaching, to broaden my impact, and start to connect my incredible clients and customers with one another.
Continued to tell my story over podcasts and speaking opportunities and grow my online audience to 20k Why? My values of creative expression, authentic connection and purposeful impact. I believe that part of my impact is through storytelling and teaching, and I want to grow the number of people that can access those learnings for free.

Your turn: What are your annual goals? How do they connect to your mission, vision and values?

QUARTERLY MILESTONES & OKR’S

Now that you’ve set your annual goals for 2025, what are the big milestones for each quarter that move you towards your annual ones? I would recommend 3 quarterly milestones max — any more than that and you’ll lose focus and decrease the probability of achieving each milestone.

You’ll also want to get more specific with these goals by breaking them into OKR’s and tactics.

O = Objective, aka the goal or milestone simply stated
KR = Key results, how you’ll measure whether the goal was achieved or not
Tactics = The actions you’ll take in order to hit your objectives

For example, here is one of my Q1 OKR’s:

Objective: Grow my coaching revenue

Key results
- KR1: Surpass $10k monthly revenue
- KR2: Re-enroll 85%+ of clients up for renewal
- KR3: Conduct 2+ sales calls/week with a 60%+ sales call closing rate
Tactics:
- Weekly sales outreach (block 2 hours/week for this)
- Mid-point check-ins with current clients to ensure they’re feeling supported and making progress towards goals
- Work with my coach to improve my sales calls
- Host one free webinar/month and do one podcast guest opportunity /month

Your turn: What are 2-3 of your Q1 OKR’s and tactics to achieve them?

MONTHLY GOALS & REVIEW

Once you have your quarterly OKR’s, you have something to measure yourself against each month.

Check in at month-end with the following:

How am I progressing against my OKR’s? Am I on track or not?
What do I need to keep doing and what do I need to change to get on track?
Does this OKR still make sense? Given changes in my environment and any new information? Does it still feel aligned to my goals and values?

WEEKLY & DAILY TASKS & PROJECTS

Finally, each of your weeks and days should be structured in order to progress your OKR’s. Prioritize the tactics that you specified for each of your OKR’s.

TASK MANAGEMENT

Personally I’m a big fan of Notion’s board view for this. I set up my to-do list with tags that specify the area of the business and if the task is associated with an OKR.

At the beginning of each week, I move tasks into “doing this week”, and then block them into my calendar so that I have an idea of what I’m doing when. Each day, I move whatever I need to get done into “doing today” (as long as I’m still in the mood for that task. Otherwise I switch it with something from another day).

You don’t need to use Notion, but find a task management system that works for you.

CALENDAR MANAGEMENT

Outside of OKR’s, there will be tasks that you need to do regularly in order to keep your business, team (if you have one) and life going that will naturally fill up your calendar. Ask yourself, “what are the hours of the day and times of the week or month that I’m most productive”? Line those hours up with the tactics that drive your OKR’s forward. Everything else can be done outside of those hours.

For example, my most productive hours are in the morning. Everyday, after my morning routine, I put in 2-3 hours of deep work, which are the tasks that advance my OKR’s. Then typically, I work out and have lunch (which re-energizes me), and reserve afternoons for coaching, calls and whatever else needs to get done.

This is what an ideal week would look like for me:

How about you? When are your most productive hours? Can you use that time to advance your OKR’s? What does your ideal week look like?

TRACKING WITH A TEAM

All of this is even more important when you lead a team. Giving your teammates clarity around the goals, how those are being measured, who is responsible for them, and how each person can be progressing towards goals, is necessary for the team’s productivity (and mental wellbeing!). Here are a few recommendations for how you can do this (and what I used to do at The GIST).

QUARTERLY OKR SPREADSHEET & MEETINGS

Before each quarter, set the quarterly OKR’s with your team. I used to set up a spreadsheet like the one below clearly spelling out: the area of the business, the objective, key results, tactics, who owns this objective, timeline, and status. Feel free to make a copy of mine and steal it.

At the end of each month, hold a meeting with the team to check-in on the progress towards each OKR. The person that owns the OKR can present their progress, what’s working, what’s not working, any changes they think they should make to better track towards the OKR, and can elicit ideas, support, or feedback from the rest of the team.

At the end of the quarter, hold a strategy meeting to review the OKR spreadsheet and set our new OKR’s.

WEEKLY PROGRESS

You might also consider setting up a weekly meeting to quickly check-in on progress and for team members to share what they’re working on that week.

I used to also request an end-of-week email where teammates would share their weekly progress, any roadblocks and requests for help, and any shoutouts for team members that helped them with their projects.

BALANCING INTUITION & REST

While I love the structure and clarity that this goal setting and time management system provides, I think it’s also important to call out that human beings are not robots, and there are things that come up that keep us from operating in accordance with our plan all of the time.

We get sick, we get tired, demands of our time come up, life happens. Some days we just plain old don’t feel like working.

And that’s not something to feel ashamed of. In fact it’s something to listen to.

I used to push myself to work through the days when I woke up feeling too tired or uninspired to grind through my to-do list and calendar. These days, because I’ve suffered from burnout and chronic fatigue, I’m learning to listen to my body. And usually when I listen and take a half day when I need to, I’m rewarded by a day when I do feel more creative flow, energy and productivity.

Or I’ll have a day where I don’t feel like doing what I scheduled in my calendar that day, but I’m in the mood for something else. And now… I actually listen to that intuition. And usually it results in higher quality work when I listen to what work I’m craving.

If you want to practice this, get in the habit of taking five minutes between blocks of work and just check in: how does my body respond when I think about doing the next task on my list? Do I feel tense and drained? Or do I feel relaxed and energized? Is there something I’d prefer to do instead that I could switch this out for? Or do I just need a break?

CYCLES AND SEASONS

Particularly for women, we’re not meant to run on the 24-hour day and calendar year cycle. Our menstrual cycles can quite meaningfully affect our energy levels and the degree to which we want to focus outward vs. inward.

When we’re menstruating, our energy, focus and productivity are at their lowest. This is a good time to focus on sleeping and rest and cut back on work tasks and social commitments. This is not the time to schedule tons of networking, public speaking and very full days of work. We’re better off resting and going easy on ourselves, recharging for the next phase. 🛌💆🏻‍♀️

In our follicular phases, we’re more energetic, driven and creative. It’s a great time to brainstorm, problem solve, and tackle our hardest work. 👨‍💻📈

Our ovulation phase brings energy, proactivity and gives us an outward focused energy. This is a great time to book the big sales calls, hard conversations, public speaking opportunities, attending events. It’s also a great time for collaboration. 🎤🤝

Finally, our luteal phase brings a natural winding down time with lower productivity and we may feel more emotional (I knew I was in mine when I teared up during Hot Frosty this past December). It’s a good time to go inward, and take advantage of your more reflective and intuitive nature. It may also feel better to lighten your workload, focus on simpler or more administrative tasks, and limit facetime. 🧘🏻‍♀️🪞

I actually put my my menstrual cycle in my calendar, layered atop my regular calendar, so that I can quickly check which phase I’ll be in as I schedule events like speaking, networking, or to see when I might have the energy for bigger work loads, versus when I should try to lighten my workload or stay home. (I have an idea of my regular cycle from tracking it on Natural Cycles with my Oura ring).

If you’re not a menstruating woman, you can still tap into cycles. The phases we see in the menstrual cycle are also reflected in both the moon cycles and the earth’s seasons — spring, summer, fall and winter — as follows:

New Moon / Winter / Menstruation: a time of healing, letting go, resting, reflecting, listening, accessing intuition, setting heartfelt intentions.
Waxing Moon / Spring / Follicular: a time to put new behaviors and habits in motion, say yes to new opportunities, create an action plan to fulfill your dreams.
Full Moon / Summer / Ovulation: A time for being social, collaborating, outward energy, recommitting to intentions.
Waning moon / Fall / Luteal: A time for turning inward, focusing on the details, transition, embracing intuition.

Whichever cycle resonates with you and your body, the important thing is to respect what you’re feeling, and to recognize that we can’t be energetic, productive and social all of the time. We need to balance that energy with rest, reflection and inward focus. And if we don’t intentionally integrate periods of rest and slowness, often our bodies will force us.

SURRENDERING YOUR PLAN

The last thing I’ll mention with respect to goal setting and planning: while it’s great to have an ambitious and detailed plan, surrendering your plan can open you up to the possibility that something even better might emerge.

You may think you know what you want, what’s best for you and what will make you happy, but the universe might just know better. If your plan gets blown up, stay curious about the redirection and potential learnings. If you’re grinding towards your plan and it’s not feeling good anymore, be open to what would feel better, what would feel more aligned and energy giving.

In 2023 I had lots of detailed plans both for my business and for my personal life. And then I burned out and had to leave my company. My plans completely disintegrated, which was rather uncomfortable for a type-A planner like me. And then my life evolved in a way that was way better than I could’ve possibly imagined. And I learned SO much and grew more than I’d grown in the previous 10 years.

While I believe that bringing intentionality and systems into our work can help prevent burnout and overwhelm, I also hope that you’ll stay open and curious to the possibility, if things don’t go exactly to plan, that something even better is coming. 💫

🪞 Your turn to reflect. Take these prompts to your morning journal or talk it over with a friend or coach.

What are the mission, vision and values that I want to take into 2025?
What are my goals for the year? How are they aligned to my mission, vision and values?
What are my quarterly objectives, key results and tactics (OKR’s) that I need to hit to achieve my annual goals?
What will be my cadence and process for checking in to ensure I’m tracking towards my OKR’s?
What time of day do I do my best work? How will I create space in my calendar to prioritize my OKR’s?
How will I show myself compassion when I don’t stick to my plan?
How will I know when I need to change my plan?
How will I integrate the rhythms of seasons and cycles into how I carry out my work?

🤿 If you want to go deeper than the deep dive, I curated these resources especially for you. <3

Learn: If you’d like to go deeper on all things performance, systems and time management, I recommend Amanda Goetz’s Masterclass: The Ultimate Guide to Success Without Burnout. You can learn more about Amanda in the Expanders section below.

Read:
- If you’re interested in learning more about how to harness the phases of your menstrual cycle or the moon cycle, I recommend this article by Allie Van Fossen about how to align your energy with the four phases of the moon or this article by Kate Northrup on menstrual cycle phases.
- Atomic Habits by James Clear is all about how to master the tiny, everyday behaviors that lead to remarkable results. I actually haven’t read it yet but it’s high on my list for this year.

💥 We’re not really about Forbes 30u30 over here. We’re shining a light on the entrepreneurs building from the heart and keeping it real.

Today’s expander, Amanda Goetz, is someone that I’ve learned so much from on the topic of goal setting, time management and so much more.

She's the ultimate portfolio career expander. She’s a former CMO & founder turned creator, and she built a $500k ARR business in her first year as a portfolio careerist through multiple different income streams — from community memberships, digital courses and coaching to brand partnerships and speaking (plus she has a book coming out this year!). I’ve had the privilege of getting a behind the scenes look on how she’s thought about building her business and the intentionality she brings to it everyday has been incredibly inspiring.

I had a chance to ask Amanda all about it and here’s what she had to say.

Goal setting and time management is an important part of what you teach. How did this become such a meaningful topic for you?

In college I had 4 jobs while taking 18 hours of classes (waitress at night, personal trainer in the morning, marketing intern during day and nanny on weekend). Then at the age of 32 I had 3 kids under the age of 5 as a single mom leading brand marketing at a public company. I had to learn it by nature of survival in both cases. And those habits stuck with me.

Why are goal setting and time management so important for entrepreneurs?

For solopreneur and entrepreneurs - you no longer have someone telling you how to operate. Discipline and operating rhythm are key to success.

How do we maintain a balance of dedication and flexibility when it comes to carrying out our plans?

I’m a firm believer that discipline and planning creates freedom. Knowing when I’m going to get my deep work done allows me to focus & finish and enjoy the rest of the day instead of procrastinating and feeling the weight of a to-do list.

If you want to grab Amanda’s 2025 business plan template (the one I used!), she’s sending it in her newsletter on Thursday, just sign up before then. And if you want to join me in Amanda’s Office Hours community, you can check it out here. I’ve been a member for a year and have really benefited from the expansion, learnings, community and accountability as a solopreneur and budding portfolio careerist.

1:1 Coaching: If you want to go into 2025 with more energy, ease and alignment you can book a 45-minute strategic coaching consultation to explore working with me.
Let’s be friends: If you want to see the BTS of building Within and receive more tips and ideas on building with integrity, connect with me on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Or meet me over zoom at my upcoming event.

If you experienced any sort of overwhelm, anxiety, self-doubt, loneliness or disconnection while building in 2024, this event is for you.

I’ll break down actionable advice for how to achieve success in 2025 with more ease, alignment, and without burning out.