79. Make 2025 Your Year of Academic and Personal Success

Setting Intentions for a Successful 2025

In this episode of the Academic Revolution Podcast, I'm discussing how to set your intentions for the new year and make 2025 a year of academic success. I share my detailed process for year-end reflection and new year planning, including practical tools and performance habits from the Physician Success DNA Method. We also cover how to create and achieve goals in both personal and professional areas of life, the importance of celebrating wins, and breaking down goals into quarterly and monthly plans. Don't miss it if you want to kickstart your year with clarity and focus! Stay tuned for our next episode where we'll dive into weekly review processes.

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Transcript

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And new year is such a great opportunity for a new start. And it gives us a fresh perspective. Fresh time and invitation to set goals and achieve them. So in this episode, let's talk about how to get your intention set for this new year and how to make 20, 25 you a year of academic success. Stay tuned for after there'll be music and we will be right back. Well, hello there. Welcome back to the academic revolution podcast. I'm your host Inger Hoffman. And I want to wish you a very wonderful. New year 2025. I know at the time you are probably listening to this. We will be a couple of weeks into the year, but nevertheless, I'm excited that you're here, that you're joining us on this show. And I want to wish you the very, very best for this coming year for this new year. And for your academic success. And in fact, that's exactly what I want to talk about today. How to make 2025. You a year of success, regardless of the circumstances. And how to go about that. Now, if you have been listening to the sofa, While you notice that I had a little bit of a hiatus and no more episodes recorded. Starting basically around October. And the reason for that being is I was very focused on my physician retreat that are hosted it's part of my faith based ministry. That took quite a bit of effort and it just got my focus and my attention solely set on that. And to be honest in the beginning, I felt a little bit guilty to leave you hanging. And I was like, I need to record some new episodes, but sometimes you also have to realize that they was times and seasons for everything. And that it's okay to step back from a project for awhile and then pick it back up. So here we are in the new year. I want to welcome you. I'm grateful that you're here, that you're tuning back into the show. And let's get started with this intention, offsetting UA year up for success. You know, when we start a new year, we often have this opportunity. Two. Take pause and reflect on our goals and what we want this new hero to look like. And that's exactly what to talk about today. I want to give you some practical tools, how you can still jump in and basically be highly intentional with this new year. This lesson entitled make 2025. Your year of success is straight from pillar. Number one. Which is performance habits of the physician success, DNA method. But I'm also going to obviously sprinkle in some leadership lessons, which is pillar number two. Which is leadership identity. So this process I'm not going to share with you. That will help you to create a successful year. To plan with intention and set some goals. It's the same process I use. And it has become a key habit for me over the years. I don't even remember when I started this. But it's probably in be a decade or longer. And I think this will be really help you. Talking with many coaching clients and with other colleagues, I noticed that. Setting intention for the year is something we are not traditionally focused on. Perhaps we do that during our academic review process. That usually cycles with the academic calendars. But I want to take this time to BD share my process. And I think that's going to really help you. I've implemented that with many people. In my coaching programs over the years, or people that are work with one-on-one. Oftentimes at the beginning of a year, I've hosted a vision retreat to help with this process. And people love it. So I thought I'm going to share it here. And you can take some of those tips and towards an implement them in your life. So how did this come about? I have to say holidays are my favorite time of the year. Number one, I love Christmas. But I also love the time in between Christmas and new years. And for me, this is a critical time. To view how the year has been going the year that we are closing out and what are some lessons I learned? So typically I sit there between the holidays. I take my old planner. Our reveal. What the year has looked like. I celebrate some wins. There's many things usually that are already forgotten. And then I take some time. And set up a fresh new planner. I am still a paper pen kind of girl. I'm not a big electronic calendar kind of person. It just helps me process better in that. It's just me. But this time, this week between Christmas and new years. Is a wonderful time for me to reflect and set the intention for the new year. And this year was no different. I did that process. I usually just take a couple of days for that. So it's not the whole week, but I love just the coziness of winter. I'm here in Wisconsin. And just sit there with a cup of coffee or a tea and just take some time in an unhurried way. To reflect. And to plan and to dream a little bit. And that's exactly what I want to share with you. So what is my process? I want to go through pretty much step-by-step so that you can rinse and repeat this. And you might say, well, we are already. In the beginning of January, can I still do this off course? You can. This is really a process you can do any time of the year. The start of a new year while they at wish nothing special per se about it and why we know new year's resolutions don't really work. It is a natural time and season to pause and reflect. So, but you can do this anytime. So I would encourage you whenever you're listening to this episode, maybe carve out some time over the weekend. Just even a couple of hours and set some time aside to use this process, go through it. Reflect and plan your here. So how do I specifically do my year end and new year planning? Well, I mentioned already, I love my paper planner, so usually I will take my or to planner and then I have a new planner. That's always fun and exciting. And if you need recommendations for. What planners I'm using, you can certainly reach out to me. But basically I take a new planner and I love the, the freshness, the newness of it. Blank paper, a blank canvas to get me started. And then I go and look at my current, my old planner and say, okay. Let me just flip back the pages. Let me do a review of what happened over this past year. And typically that actually means I have a couple of planners. But I carry over my yearly goals from planner to planner. So it's always updated. And adjusted for where I'm at in life. So I take a look at what have I accomplished this past year. And celebrate my wins because here's the thing we often forget very, very quickly all the good stuff that happened. I know the bad things, the not so productive things. The missed goal is we have them in our forefront of our minds and beat ourselves up and we get to that. But. The, the good things we tend to forget very quickly. So this is a wonderful time to take stock and inventory and say, you know what? I actually did accomplish a bunch of things. It isn't all lost over the past year. I did accomplish some big things. And this is a time to remind herself off of that and celebrate that because we don't do that enough in academic medicine. So that's the first part. I review my past goals. And I take a look. What were the goals for this past year? And what have I accomplished? What what have I missed perhaps, but also again, what have I accomplished and border can celebrate. And then I'll go ahead and I look at. My vision and my purpose. Now I take people through that process all the time. To really narrow down and zone in and zoom in on what is your vision for your life? What do you feel like your life's purpose is? And I think I've recorded past podcasts. Episodes on this. I will find the number and put that in the show notes. But I encourage you to reflect on that every year. And that's very helpful to read through your personal kind of vision statement and your purpose. And also take a fresh look and say, is this still true? Or do I need to make some tweaks? Because we evolve. We change. We grow as a person and what was important to me or what I thought my vision was five years ago is perhaps not super accurate anymore. The greater theme still stands, but usually I make some tweaks because. For doing more. I accomplished some things. And so that's a wonderful time to step back and really look at the big picture. Which as physicians, honesty, where you rarely ever take the time to do that. So taking a step back and looking at the big picture is absolutely critical because it will help you. Set your goals with more clarity and it will help you through out the year saying no to things, setting boundaries, because if you don't have a direction and know where you're headed a will be really hard to actually. You know, chart that territory and make progress if you're not sure where am I actually had it. So really important I've reveal my vision and my purpose kind of statement that I wrote for myself. And assess if anything needs tweaking. Or just get re-energized about it because usually ran, ran, right. Those stone. Every year, there is this fresh energy that is this sense of hope. There is this new inspiration off I'm going to go after it. And then, you know, over the years sometimes. You don't have that inspiration. You are in the trenches. You're not seeing the big picture. This is a great time to rejuvenate and inject some energy into your vision and purpose statement. And really get excited about your life again. So that's the first part. And then I look at, from that usually have written out some long-term goals, meaning. You know, the five to 10 Yoko let's I usually don't do a whole lot of, you know, 20 year goal setting, but you know, what are the things that I want to see over the next few years of my life? And that is very important to say, what are the things that I want to accomplish? Not only professionally. But in all areas of life. And I will mention that you really want to look at every area of your life and not just your economic goals. Because I'm a strong believer and that's how I practice in my coaching practice as well. That we, we are a whole person. And we have to look at all the areas of our lives and because they're all interconnected. If you are happy and in Madison, but your personal life is falling apart. Well, that will ultimately affect your professional career. And vice were so. So we really want to be taking a holistic approach here and not. Shuffle the personal life to sort of, to the site. And we tend to do that as physicians. We are very goal and. Achievement orientated. And we feel like, eh, the person lives sort of a given. Like I have to make it work kind of thing. And that's then. The situation we have, we sometimes lose sight of it. And don't put as much focus and attention to it because we feel like we constantly have to go after our. Professional and academic goals. So that's just a side note, make sure that you look at a holistic picture that. Contains all areas of your life, personal and professional. So after I looked at those long-term goals, I say to myself, well, are there any real changes? And that's sometimes happens that I would say, well, you know, that has really shifted or it might have gotten more clear over time. That actually happens a lot. They are, might be a goal that I think of this is important for me at this stage. And then I gain clarity. Like, no, this actually should look a little different. So again, looking at those things on a routine basis. We'll help you stay focused. And that's sweetie the key here because our labs are busy. If we don't set intention. We will easily get lost. On the journey. And then I really narrow it down to this year. So I reveal my yearly goals from the last year and say, how did it go? And that's also important when you do that to not have any judgment. And that's very easy to jump in and say, well, I wish I would have accomplished these things or you beat yourself up over things that you didn't accomplish. As perfectionist as highly professional achieving people, we do that all the time. But again, I want to caution you as you, wherever you try not to put any judgment on the air, but rather, you know, get sort of curious and say, well, I really wanted to do this. Why did this not happen? And often it has something to do with. Maybe I'm not excited about the project anymore. Maybe that was something that you thought you should be doing, but actually it's, you're not really. Interested or passionate at all. Do you feel like somebody, maybe even put this on your plate? So that's important to note. And sometimes you just realize, okay, I did park unasked, innate or lifeguard in a way, or just put too much on your plate. If you don't have that evaluation process. Then you don't know how to tweak it. And how to improve it for next year. So make sure. You take assessment. Off your yearly goals. How it went. What got accomplished and what didn't get accomplished and why. And then I set goals for the new year. I might carry some of those. Or to gold over and say, you know, I'm still excited. I just need to make it a priority. That's great. Then put it back on the list. There might be other things that you say, you know what I've been. Trying to do this for the last two or three years, and I'm not making any progress. And honestly, every time I think about it, I just crunch. I don't even feel excited about it anymore. Well then. Maybe it's time to let it go. So set new goals for this coming year for this new year 2025. And again, focus on all areas of your life. So what do I mean by that? You want to focus on your professional life. So what are your academic goals? And. You might even look at categories. Like if you're doing research in clinical work, what are my research goals? What are my clinical goals? And then look at other areas of your life, your health, your family, your relationships. Your finances. Your personal development, that's something we might easily forget. Under personal development. For example, you set some goals for yourself and really set the intention. How do I want to grow myself this year? So that's not so much as I want to write this grant, but how do I become a better person? How do I become the person that is accomplishing all these goals? So that might mean that you set yourself a goal to maybe read certain to person development books. Or that you say, this is the year I read. They want to hire a coach. I've been thinking about this for a while. But I think I should just pull the trigger and set the intention and the budget for it. These are the type of things I would put under them. Maybe there's a course. You want to take, maybe there's a leadership seminar you want to take. So these would be personal development goals. And I would say they're critically important. This is what most people neglect. And if you don't develop yourself, you will never really become the person. That is needed to achieve all these other goals. So that's a key focus area, but again, Make sure you have a rail rounded picture that addresses all areas of your life. Now then I go ahead. When I have all the yearly goals, I will break them down into quarters. No, some of those yearly goals will already be a natural kind of a quarter goal. What I mean by that? Perhaps they, as a specific project that I say, okay, I want to do that sort of in the fall. And then you break it down at all, but he becomes kind of a quarterly gumball for Q3 of this year. Other goals will be a year long effort and two, you will have to chunk it down into quarterly goals. And so I do that and I say, okay, between now and the end of March, what would I want to accomplish and what needs to get done to fulfill some of my yearly goals. And again, it is very important to grab different goals from different areas of life. You cannot do it all at once. That's really important to remember. And I don't want you to just focus on. Your professional life. Because when we continue to do that, we neglect personal relationship, our personal life. And that's not helpful in the long run. So again, make sure that even your quarterly goals have a little bit of a mix of different areas of your life. And I usually try to set. Maybe three to five quarterly goals. I think that's already quite ambitious. I won't make it three, but probably not over five, because three months over before, you know, it's so be mindful of that. So break things down into quarterly goals. And then I just start planning right there in January, my first quarter. Which means breaking things out. From quarterly goals to monthly goals. Which means. Look at January and see what I want to accomplish. Then I usually go and look really at. January. And say, okay. To achieve this goal by the end of March, what do I have to do by the end of this month? In order to get on track. What are maybe some habits I need to form around this? Are there some routine things I should be doing every day? To make progress on that or every week. So that put me in that you set aside routine academic writing time. If you're due for a grant that you want to submit later, the CEO. Perhaps that means that you set aside routine. Exercise time or time with family. Or. Keep your eyes on maybe. E conference you want to go to. The other. Thing that I do in this yearly planning is I look at my entire calendar and I already map out the things that I know. That I will be busy for whether that's okay. He or his vacation coming up. What your service time, if you have inpatient service time that you already block those things out on your calendar. Perhaps you have a meeting that you want to attend. This year. I already blocked that out on my calendar so that I can plan and see things at a glance. That gives me also a more realistic expectation. What I can do. And the times in between service and travel and vacation. And whatever else might come up that is sort of a non movable date. And that's actually been important because what I see a lot of people. Fall into a trap off. Oh, I want to submit a grant for whatever for the summer deadline for an hour one. And then they realize. Yeah, actually, that's going to be pretty tricky because I'm going to meeting and I'm on service gazillion weeks. So once you see that at a glance, he can sort of assess is this actually a realistic expectation, whereas a stressing out a made that it's really impossible to finish the grant project. You had set your eye on. So that's really helpful. Again, stepping back, getting a big picture of view, a bird's eye view of this coming here. And then as I mentioned, I look at January and then map out more closely. Exactly. Fill in already. On my paper calendar. Sort of key dates. What are key things? In key dates and appointments that are happening, not to the daily nitty gritty, but sort of big picture strokes. Again, service time on call, maybe bake appointments. Like, I don't know. Kids' doctor's appointments, things that are. Maybe I have to coordinate for what that will just take a little extra. Consideration. And then from there I go through my weekly process. Now again, to sum up. The year end or the new year is a perfect time. Although any time is good. To take stock of where you are. How has the past year been going? What did you learn? Where did you win? Where did you learn something? And what is your intention for this year? I know, it sounds a bit overwhelming. It sounds like, oh, who has time to sit there for two hours and do this kind of process or however long it might take you. But I would say. You actually cannot afford not to do this. And you will see that once you go through this process, Number one, it gets you actually fired up and gets you some excitement. Number two, it will give you clarity because you now have sort of mapped it out and on paper and you basically just follow what you have already mapped out. And Number three, it gives you again a time to reassess where you are and where you're headed. And celebrate your wins. So I find this in invaluable process. I personally don't live without it. I have done it for, as I mentioned for over a decade. And I think it will be really helpful to you. So I encourage you. Go get a plan out. If you don't have one. If you rather do it electronically in that. It's better for you. This is how your brain functions. Dewart on whatever system you're using electronically. I do would encourage you to, you might need to have a piece of paper to sketch something somewhat and to jot some things down. That can be helpful. And yeah. Then you rinse and repeat this process. Every heel. Now in the next episode. I want to share a little bit what I do. In-between. Because I don't just do this once a year. I actually, as I already alluded to break things down into quarters and quarters go into month and month to weeks and weeks today. So in the next episode, state you and I will share my monthly in a weekly review process so that you can get a sense. Okay. How do I now get from a month? To all week and to my daily. Deliver a belts and that's something people ask me all the time. In fact, I don't think I've ever had a coaching client not address or ask me this question when needed help with us. To make sure basically you get things done during the week. And that's what we're going to talk about in the next episode. So I hope this helped you. I hope this served you. Now if you are needing help with this process and you said. In the sounds fantastic. I wish I had somebody to help me guide through this process because honestly I'm not clear of what my vision is. I have some academic goals, but I really feel in the space of. That I need a kind of a fresh look at things. Well, perhaps you're feeling a bit stuck and you're not even sure if what to do and what your goals should be. I would be delighted to help you. And I do this. For many years with many people. To really help you. Getting through this process of getting a clear understanding. What's my blueprint for my life, essentially. Where am I headed? Why is this important to me? Get that out of you and get it on paper. And then set very strategic goals for this year. That are aligned with your vision, with your purpose and your values, and then help you achieve them. So if you say, you know, I'm ready for this, I really want to make this year. A year of great success and less stress, but I do need some help. Then you are welcome to reach out the best way to do this is to just schedule an informal. Noncommittal Chast for you to learn and get to know me a little better. And I get to know you just schedule a free evaluation session. You got to my website, INGAA Hoffman. That is one F and two ends. I'm going to put it in the show notes and on the upper right corner, right on their homepage is a link apply for coaching that leads you through a few questions and just sets up this first evaluation call. There's no fees involved. This is Shasta for us to have a chat about what you're looking for, how I can help and serve you. And if you like, you know, this is not for me, no hard feelings. We had a nice conversation. But if you do interested, we can take a look how working together. Would look like. So go ahead and submit you are a request. For a phone call there. And I will be so delighted to help you and meet you. And with that, I wish you the most successful 2025 all success, health, and enjoy. And please know that. I'm here to support you. We're going to have more episodes coming up. And make sure you follow us on or follow the show on the podcast by subscribing to it. That will help you make sure you kept the episode every week. So stay tuned for next week's episode, where we talk about our weekly reviews. And have a wonderful week. Thank you.