2025. And... Hit it!

Welcome to potentiality - yours and ours

Endings and beginnings

So we wrapped up 2024 and were offered a chance to think back over the year. What went well? Where were the surprises? What did we notice about ourselves? How did we change physically and mentally?

If you’re anything like me, 2024 served up some deep troughs of pain but some great moments of joy and hope. Maybe, in fact in the balancing act that is life, you can’t truly have one without the other.

And now that we have emerged blinking into 2025, what new opportunities lie in store, this year and beyond? How can we grasp them and, more importantly, stay grasping them?

Goal or Gaol?

At the pub this weekend, there was the usual chat about New Year’s Resolutions. What’s yours? Maybe you’re looking for a change and are planning to get thin; get rest; give up meat; get a new job; write the book; go on a silent retreat; or run a marathon? These and many similar aspirations come into coaching sessions at the start of the year.

But here’s a thing: goal-setting like this seldom leads to the change you may want and conversely maybe you wont achieve these goals without deeper thought. So-called SMART goal setting risks reducing and even constraining our lives and our work to some kind of project management.

If they are easily achieved because you’re going to do it anyway, is it really a change? Many year-end - or even sooner, say, late January - reflections show, these “I’m going to change” projects are often abandoned when conditions change. Failure to keep them can make us feel that we have let ourselves and others down. Our brave goals become our gaol, imprisoning us in the if-only self-assessments: “I meant to...”, “I should of…” etc. I have met some who refuse all thoughts of resolutions to change because they know they will never keep them. As this British Heart Foundation survey from the start of 2024 shows, people often want to make a change but they get stuck

In reality, many of us get bored with our own plans. Perhaps we only half-believe we can or even want to reach them. Or maybe we lack confidence in our convictions.

January Top Tip: HIT it!

If you want to make a change that matters in 2025 try this thinking (complete with a helpful mnemonic):

Start first by pausing to consider who you are now, in what ways you are special and what that is telling you life needs from you (note, not the other way around). As you consider the answers, put your plans to the HIT test:

• Hard? - Is the plan challenging enough so that the thought makes you take a breath? Or leaves your hands feel a bit sweaty?

• Important? – Does it matter enough to you that other stuff will be put aside and that you will return to it even when you may get distracted from time to time?

• Thrilling? – will you share it with excitement with a close friend or loved one so they can share the excitement you feel?

Three yes’s and you have the basis of some great work! Fewer than three and some more thought might be needed. Get in touch and we can get started.

Why this, why now?

TopHat Discovery CIC grew out of a former business in 2024 and provides coaching-led services for social impact. We intend to support those working in non-profits and businesses with the aim of making a positive sustainable change as well as using surplus to make coaching services accessible to a wider range of clients and supporting coaches too. This newsletter is part of our aim to collaborate, share and extend our reach.

When you subscribe, we will be grinning from ear to ear and, more practically, joining a community of clients, coaches and colleagues moving us forward with a momentum for change towards great impact and sustainable change. This newsletter will reach you monthly at the start of the month. Hopefully it will grow in sophistication as we get better at Substack! In it, we will share thoughts and tips from our work and ask for your comments and your wisdom. Join in!

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