Empowered woman setting intentions for 2025, reflecting growth, leadership, and success.

Make 2025 Your Best Year Yet!

January 22, 20258 min read

Make 2025 Your Best Year Yet!

I’m not overly big on setting New Year’s Resolutions because I find that when we don’t stick to them, we end up feeling disappointed in ourselves, and that can actually hinder us more than help us. I’ve found that setting an intention for the new year is far more effective instead. (If you've already set New Year’s Resolutions and are really determined to stick to them, it might be helpful to read my blog post from one of the previous years.) If you're unsure of what intentions to set, jump straight to these journal prompts.

Why Setting Intentions Works Better for Ambitious Women

So, why do I find setting intentions works better, especially for ambitious women and those in leadership roles? By selecting an overall theme and intention for the year, it becomes much easier to make real progress without feeling like you’re failing if things don’t go exactly as planned. It gives you flexibility to adapt your focus as your life ebbs and flows throughout the year, and helps you overcome leadership stress and manage overwhelm when life gets busy.

When we set New Year’s Resolutions, we usually get very specific about what we want to achieve and how we want to do it. For example, let’s say your New Year’s Resolution is to get fit and work out more. You might decide you want to go to the gym or take fitness classes at least 4 times a week. But what happens when life gets busy and you start missing those classes or not getting to the gym? You might end up either giving up on your goal or beating yourself up for not sticking to it.

Being the overachievers we tend to be, we often overload ourselves with too many resolutions or actions because we want to change everything at once. However, behaviors and habits are some of the hardest things to change, so trying to change too much all at once is a very challenging and unrealistic expectation of ourselves. This is where leadership transformation can help. With the right guidance, you can focus on growth in key areas without overloading yourself.

By setting just 1–3 intentions, you can align your actions with your overall intentions, allowing you to feel like you’re making progress toward them, rather than feeling like you’re failing and getting down on yourself.

The Flexibility of Intentions in Leadership Roles

For example, let’s say you set an intention of Health or Fitness for the year. There are countless ways this intention can manifest, and it gives you the freedom to adapt. You could start the year by going to the gym a few times a week, but when things get hectic and you can’t make it, you might switch gears and try doing yoga at home in the mornings instead. The key is that you’re still moving toward your intention of being healthy or fit, without having to feel guilty that you’re not following your original plan.

This kind of flexibility is critical for staying motivated throughout the year and sticking to your goals. Leadership coaching for women executives often highlights how important it is to be fluid and adaptable, especially when juggling high-performance roles. We can often ‘should’ ourselves into submission, which leads our inner critic to make us feel bad, guilty, or ashamed. Operating from this space is not empowering, and it certainly doesn’t help us achieve our goals or feel truly fulfilled. But by showing yourself compassion, forgiveness, and encouragement, you’ll have a much more successful year overall. This isn’t about making excuses and abandoning your goals, but about being fluid in how you reach them, adjusting as needed while still maintaining a sense of self-worth.

Aligning Career with Human Design

Another key element of achieving your goals and staying in alignment is aligning your career with your Human Design. Human Design is a powerful tool for understanding how you’re energetically designed to work, make decisions, and interact with the world. When you understand your unique Human Design, you can tailor your career strategy to work in harmony with your natural strengths and inclinations.

For example, if you’re a Manifesting Generator or Projector, you might thrive on flexibility and autonomy in your work. This could mean creating a more balanced career that allows you to lead with confidence, while honoring your need for rest or creative flow. Leadership and emotional intelligence can also be enhanced when you align your career with your true design—this leads to more clarity, less burnout, and a sense of deeper fulfillment in your work. Strategic career coaching can help you uncover your ideal work-life balance based on your Human Design.

A Personal Example from a Previous Year

In a previous year, one of my intentions was Freedom. At the start of that year, I was still working in my corporate job, coming off the back of a year where I worked anywhere between 12–16-hour days and most weekends. I was craving the freedom to control my time, as year after year, I found myself missing out on quality time with my now-teenagers, who would soon be leaving home. So, I began the year by blocking off my calendar in advance to better manage my overloaded meeting schedule. I chose a few days a week where I’d stop working at a set time, allowing me to go for a walk, do a workout at home, and spend evenings with my kids. I also made a commitment to stop working most weekends unless it was absolutely necessary.

I adjusted my actions depending on what needed to be done that week. This helped me prioritize better, stop overcommitting, and begin to feel a sense of freedom in my daily routine. It wasn’t about sacrificing my intention altogether, but about adjusting my approach to maintain it, even when life got busy.

By mid-year, I resigned from my corporate job to focus on my business full-time. While this wasn’t something I planned at the start of the year, it ended up being a huge step toward meeting my intention of freedom. Every day since then, I express gratitude for where I am today compared to where I was before. My intention of authentic success coaching has truly shaped how I approach my life and work.

Journal Prompts for 2025

To help you set your intentions for 2025, I’ve created a few journal prompts to reflect on the year just passed, as well as to clarify what you want for the upcoming year.

Grab your journal and a cup of your favourite beveridge, and reflect on the following questions:

  1. What went well for you in 2024?

  2. What do you wish had gone better, and why?

  3. What did you learn about yourself in 2024?

  4. What are you bringing into 2025 with you (e.g., new actions, goals, beliefs, or habits)?

  5. If you had a magic wand, what would you want to happen in 2025?

  6. List about 5 things you want to happen in your life—career, health, relationships, finances, spiritual life, etc.

  7. Are any key themes emerging from your answers?


Now, select your top 3 main intentions for 2025. Write them out as a word or phrase, then describe what they mean to you. For example, if one of my intentions is Being Healthy, that would mean feeling fit and well, not just physically, but also mentally and emotionally.

  • What could stop you from achieving this intention?
    Dig deep here and be honest with yourself. For example, if Wealth is one of your intentions, and it means increasing your income by $200,000, a potential block might be believing you’re worthy of that extra income.

  • Why would you be really excited to achieve this intention?
    This is where your “why” becomes essential. It’s the thing that will keep you going, especially when things get tough. For example, increasing your income might give you financial freedom, allowing you to make life decisions you couldn’t otherwise. Remind yourself of this deeper reason to stay motivated.


The Biggest Takeaway: You Are in Control

The biggest message I want to leave you with is this: It’s easy to feel like life is happening to us, and we aren’t in control of our circumstances. We can feel like we’re slaves to our situation. But if you’re feeling this way, I encourage you to view 2025 as an opportunity to take back control. Ultimately, you are the one in charge of your life. You are more than capable of achieving whatever you desire. Often, it’s a matter of changing the way we approach things and believing we are worthy of the life we want. To know, deep down, that you deserve it.

So here’s to 2025: a year for growth, success without sacrifice, female leadership transformation, and living your truth.


If you’d like more support or help to explore your gifts, discover your purpose, or achieve your goals, I am opening up a few 1:1 coaching spots in January. Together, we’ll create your plan, uncover hidden blocks, and move you out of surviving and into thriving in your life. If you’re interested, feel free to book an introductory call here.

Kerrie Campbell is a transformative coach and a passionate advocate for ambitious, career-driven women seeking to align their success with true authenticity. With over 25 years in executive leadership and human resources across global organizations, Kerrie understands the unique challenges that women face in high-stakes environments. After achieving outward career success while raising 2 children, she found herself facing burnout, which led her to a powerful realization: fulfillment and impact comes not from external achievements but from living in alignment with one’s core self. This awakening ignited her purpose to help others transform their lives by unlocking their inner wisdom and purpose.

Kerrie Campbell

Kerrie Campbell is a transformative coach and a passionate advocate for ambitious, career-driven women seeking to align their success with true authenticity. With over 25 years in executive leadership and human resources across global organizations, Kerrie understands the unique challenges that women face in high-stakes environments. After achieving outward career success while raising 2 children, she found herself facing burnout, which led her to a powerful realization: fulfillment and impact comes not from external achievements but from living in alignment with one’s core self. This awakening ignited her purpose to help others transform their lives by unlocking their inner wisdom and purpose.

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