Ever set a goal, feel determined to make it happen, and then find yourself 5 weeks into the year well behind where you committed to be? It happens even to the most disciplined people.

We set a goal, take a few steps in that direction, and then get derailed.

You likely don’t need more accountability, a bigger “why”, or better time management. Often, the cause of the issue is a small, single oversight.  

Your attention is only on one side of the equation.

You’re overly concentrated on what you want to START doing without also focusing your attention in the opposite direction.

“What do you need to STOP doing this year?”

What are your current habits, thoughts, behaviors, or tendencies that will hold you back from achieving your goals this year?

Often, it’s not that you need better new habits, it’s the old habits that are holding you back! If you can identify what those are, you can preemptively and significantly reduce the amount of friction in your path to hitting your goals.

Here are a few areas I realized I need to STOP doing in 2025:

• Deprioritizing strategic or creative thinking time in my calendar
• Allowing fear of failure prevent me from initiating new opportunities that aren’t “guaranteed to work”
• Sitting in indecision
• Trying to do more rather than focusing on doing LESS but BETTER

We don’t always need MORE EFFORT,

sometimes we simply need LESS ROADBLOCKS.

Make a list of everything you need to STOP doing in 2025; a list of items that if you stopped doing, you’d likely hit your goals this year.

That list now becomes your “AVOID AT ALL COSTS” list.

Print it out.

Put it on your desk.

Look at it daily.

Reminding yourself that you’re commitment to avoiding the items on that list, will be the catalyst that allows you to more freely create the future you want for yourself and for your company.

Those items lose their power when you move them from subconscious behaviors and patterns of thought and put them on paper.