Happy New Year 2025!

I want to start this post by wishing you, my friend, a very happy and prosperous new year! My wish for you is that 2025 will be a year of fulfilment and satisfaction and that your life will be in perfect harmony!

As we begin another race of life marked by 365 calendar days, it is normal to feel a new surge of energy at the beginning of the year. This is the time we set lofty goals and have firm convictions that we will achieve them.

However, it is also normal that as the days and months go by, hearts begin to go weary, strengths begin to wane, and convictions begin to lose intensity. If this has been your experience in the past years, then you have only one goal at the beginning of this year: to answer the questions "Why?" and "How?".

Why is this my experience, and how can I change it so I can finish 2025 strong? If done genuinely, there is a lot of wisdom to gather from this self-reflection. I can guarantee that you will get answers, and new ideas will come to you if you have the right heart posture.

Let me share my experience with you.

I remember attending a job interview for a finance role some time back, and one of the "technical" questions the interviewer asked me was to explain the role of a financial institution. Of all the technical questions I could have been asked, this interviewer was taking me back to the very basics of finance.

I couldn't understand why until I listened to an interview where someone was recounting his experience observing one of Kobe Bryant's early morning workouts. He said he watched Kobe practice basic basketball routines on the court, and this got him curious because he had expected to see more sophisticated practice drills from the best basketball player in the world. When he asked Kobe why he did this, Kobe's response was: "Why do you think I am the best player in the world? It's because I never get bored with the basics."

You can watch the video here:

This interview resonated so deeply with me because many times we forget to go back to the basics, to the very core and foundational principles and ideas of our different fields of study, the very ones that form the core of success.

We live in times when doing the basics is no longer attractive. The basics are boring! We want to sound deep yet lacking in depth. We want to achieve big and lofty goals but forget to revisit the very principles of goal setting and achievement. Then we wonder why we underperform or fail.

2025 is not the year to skip steps. If you have started the year already cutting and pasting items on your vision board, and setting loft goals for yourself, but haven't sat down to answer the "how" question. You might be in for a huge surprise at the end of the year.

One of the things I am doing differently this year is to start the year by reading: Goals!: How to Get Everything You Want – Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible by Brian Tracy.

It is quite easy to assume that you know all about goal setting. The acronym S.M.A.R.T may not be an alien word to you at this point. In fact, I used to be like you, until I started to read this book. It has introduced new perspectives that I didn't know mattered for goal setting and I have had to journal a lot as a result.

I encourage you to sit with this book and learn for yourself the basics of goal setting and how to set goals that push you forward into your preferred future.

2025 has a lot of potential in it, and we can become, have and do all that we propose in our hearts. However, we must do things differently so that we can achieve different and better results in the year.

Don't forget to revisit, practice and stay consistent with the basics!

Once again, I wish you a fulfilling, satisfying and bedazzling 2025!

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You're a gem 💎, remember that. Keep living your bedazzled life, one day at a time.