Goal Time: Plan Now for 2025

Before the calendar rolls over to Jan. 1, take some time to get down what you want your content business to accomplish in the New Year.

No, I’m not talking resolutions; I’m talking goals. Resolutions are limiting. They confine you to do or not do something. Instead, set goals. Goals are expansive. They are all about what you want to achieve.

So, block out a few sessions to work on your content entrepreneur goals on your calendar in the next five weeks or so. Don’t try to do it all in one day. You need time between some of the steps to ponder, consider, and assess.

Review the past

If you have documented your goals, go back and review them to see what worked, what didn’t, and what no longer matters.

But, if you didn’t have explicit goals, you should still look back at the past six months to a year. What did you do? Was it successful? Could it have been more successful? How did your audience react? What did you discover about your strengths and weaknesses as a creator and an entrepreneur?

Review your answers to help inform your content entrepreneur goals for 2025. 

Brainstorm content entrepreneur goal possibilities

Now comes the fun part. Start listing anything and everything you would like to achieve as a content entrepreneur, as well as what you want the business to achieve. Don’t limit yourself to the coming year. Dream big and small.

Maybe you want to build a business to a financial level where you can quit your day job. Maybe you want to write a book. Maybe you want to start a community. Maybe you want to earn enough revenue to contract with a virtual assistant to help out with administrative tasks you don’t like to do. Perhaps you want 500K subscribers, or maybe you want to convert 10% of your followers into paying customers. And maybe it’s selling your content business for $10M.

Now, highlight the top 10 goals on that list.

Break into mini-goals and tasks

Take each of the highlighted goals and break them down into manageable goals (if necessary) and tasks. What do you need to do or accomplish to attain it? In some cases, you may not have the perfect roadmap. That’s OK. The point is to see the small pictures that are required to create the bigger picture.

Then, estimate the time to complete the mini-goals and tasks. Depending on the task, it might be two days, or it could be six months or longer.

By knowing what you need to do and how long you likely need to do it, you are better positioned to narrow the list of 10 goals to what you can reasonably expect to accomplish in the coming year or make significant progress on if it’s a multi-year goal.

I recommend picking a mix – some that are easier to achieve and some that will be a stretch to achieve. That way, you can experience early success to motivate you to keep going (or learn more quickly what’s actually possible.)

Set the calendar

Robert Herjavec, best known for the TV show Shark Tank, often says, “A goal without a timeline is just a dream.”

So now it’s time to turn your dreams into goals. With each goal, add the target completion date. At this point, you also need to detail how you will identify if you achieved it – establishing the metrics is essential.

Next, pull out your calendar. Add those completion dates, then work backward, adding dates to achieve your mini-goals as well as the necessary tasks to complete them. By setting deadlines and posting them to your calendar, your goals will remain at the forefront every day. 

Check-in, review, and revise

Of course, you probably won’t be able to hit every deadline or complete every task. You also may need to revise your goals based on new opportunities or pivot when you find something isn’t achieving what you had hoped.

Add a weekly check-in to your calendar to assess progress on the mini-goals and every month or quarter to analyze your big goals. Are you on track? Are these goals still relevant? What adjustments should be made?

Celebrate

When you achieve a goal, don’t just simply check it off the list. Take a moment to celebrate. Share the win with your community. (Don’t forget to share with the Tilt Publishing community. We want to hear about it, too. Reward yourself with a treat (you get to pick based on your favorites and budget.)

How to set goals for your whole person

While setting content entrepreneur goals for your business is one thing, it’s also important for entrepreneurs to remind themselves it’s not all about the business. 

Tilt founder Joe Pulizzi has a unique process for his goal-setting that encompasses all facets of his life. “The difference in the direction my life took from that point on is beyond remarkable to me,” he says.

Joe defines goals in six categories:

• Financial
• Family
• Spiritual
• Mental
• Physical
• Philanthropic

In each area, he writes down his goals in the present tense – as if they’ve been accomplished, such as “Physical: I run two times per week and compete in two half-marathons per year.” Or “Family: I have healthy children who believe they can accomplish anything.” Under each category, he lists up to three goals that can be measured. 

He reviews them first thing every morning. It takes three minutes. Don’t think your goals are set in stone – adjust and update them as necessary. It’s not hard, but you have to make it a habit.

Share the goals you set for your content business in this community on LinkedIn, and we’ll help you stay accountable and provide some resources whenever possible.

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