Use this planning exercise and get ahead of the 75% of people that fail their New Year’s Resolutions and instead … make 2025 the best year of your life.

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When I worked as a television sports anchor, I got about three minutes to tell you everything that happened in the world of sports that day.

• From highlights to engaging stories,
• Breaking news to ongoing developments,
• Updates with local or favorite players and teams,
• Injury reports and breakdowns.

In order to fit everything in those three minutes without it being chaotic, I would need to sit down and plan it out: Which stories took top priority, what I would write about in each story, how long each story needed to be. All while being informative and entertaining.

We call this plan a rundown.

And we planned out the rundown every single day. Because every single day looked different.

Every day presented new games to showcase, updates about players and teams, reaction from everyone involved.

There’s a master rundown for the entire show and then my sports segment had its own little niche rundown that was managed by me.

Each story would get its own place in the rundown. But no matter what, the total time of the segment had to add up to three minutes.

I worked backward from those three total minutes to determine how much time each story in my rundown would get. And I would prioritize the stories based on importance, assigning an amount of time per story.

For example (warning: math is about to happen):

If my first story (the lead) was a set of highlights and I wanted to use up 60 seconds to share those highlights, that left two minutes in my segment for the rest of the day in sports.

I’d work out the timing for those remaining stories:

• 30 seconds to talk about an upcoming game
• 15 seconds for the soundbyte from the coach talking about it
• 15 seconds for quick news about another local team
• Another 60 seconds for more highlights

We call this backtiming

And it provided a roadmap for my show so I could execute my sports segment nightly.

I’d write the scripts for each segment, oftentimes I’d even edit the highlights, videos and soundbytes you’d see and hear throughout those three minutes.

Then when my time during the newscast came up, I’d step out to the set and deliver the three minutes of sports news.

I’m no longer a sports journalist, but I still use this approach to plan my year.

I like to backtime my year so I can determine the proper action steps to hit my goals. I do this for everything from my health to my business … and even ideas for this newsletter.

Today you’re going to do a similar exercise in your plan to make 2025 the best year of your life.

Instead of setting lofty goals and unfulfilled resolutions, we’re going to map out the path to finally making your big dreams a reality.

You don’t even have to go on live television to do it.

Let’s get into it.

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Why New Year’s Resolutions fail

It’s the start of another year. And now you’ve got a clean slate.

You’re motivated to finally get your shit together. This is gonna be the year. So like many others, you come up with some lofty goals for yourself to turn things around. 

Almost half of the U.S. will create New Year’s Resolutions. Only about 25-percent will stay committed beyond the first month of the year.

The reasons why almost 75-percent of people fail to accomplish those new year goals are common and avoidable:

They set goals that are not specific. Or too unattainable. And usually they get impatient, make the new habit they’re trying to create too difficult to keep up. Until they eventually quit.

There’s almost always this scattershot aggressive approach of a total lifestyle overhaul:

• I’m going to read all of the nonfiction and self help books;
• start most aggressive workout program possible;
• eat only the cleanest and low-carbiest of foods available;
• quit the smoking and all the porn and never snack again;
• I’m going to make myself as miserable as possible because “no pain, no gain.”

You’ll sign up for some 30-day challenge that “resets your metabolism” or your mental health or your hormones. Maybe even dabble in the supplements they convince you to buy, too.

“You’ve got this!”

Except you can’t keep up with it.

Yeah, you’ve got it for about two to three weeks before parenting, the office place or just life in general trips you up. Then you see how truly unsustainable it is to completely change like, well … everything.

But if you do nothing … if you change nothing … nothing happens.

You continue to live this life in mediocrity.

And 30 years from now, you sit on your couch, out of shape, overweight, unfulfilled. And full of regret instead. Regret that you didn’t capitalize on the time you had in your 40s to at least try something new and stick to it.

You owe it to your future stressed-out self to attempt to make a change. And actually commit to this change.

The answer is to have a better plan (similar to my sportscast rundown).

One that you can finally execute consistently. A plan that is detailed and prioritizes the right things. You’ll have more direction, clarity and the ability to finally see things through. It’s like a resolution on steroids.

And it starts with your vision.

What would actually make 2025 the best year of your life?

Fast forward to this time next year. You actually achieved your goals. And you’re super fucking proud of the work you put in and now you’re on the way to living your best life.

But … What does that even look like?

Get really clear and specific on the vision for your future. It’s a great exercise for your next journaling session.

And I like using a journal because it gives you room to write and explore and brainstorm.

Writing down your goals makes you 42-percent more likely to actually achieve them.

Just like I would backtime my three minute sports segment every single day, you are going to backtime your next 365 days.

“Fix the lifestyle you want. Then work backwards from there.”

– Cal Newport

If everything worked perfectly for you, what would the best year of your life look like?

Ask yourself the following questions about what your life looks like one year from now:

• Where are you?
• Who are you with?
• What are you doing for work?
• How does your health look?
• What are you doing for fun? Travel? Gaming? Sports? Reading? Spas? What lights you up on the inside?

Get clear on this vision.

Use the questions as a guideline. Start building an image in your mind about an ideal future. And really think about what it would feel like.

Do you feel accomplished? Relieved? Fulfilled? Satisfied? Energenic? Happy? Excited for the next five or 10 years to follow?

Then ask yourself this crucial question that I like to do in my personal annual review:

If you were to repeat 2024 in 2025 … would that get you closer to your overall vision for a more fulfilling life?

If the answer is yes … you’re doing really well for yourself. Congrats.

But if you’re reading this newsletter today, the answer is likely a big no.

In which case, it’s time for you to change to make 2025 the best year of your life.

5 areas to focus on to make 2025 the best year of your life

During my sports days, the big question I’d ask myself every single day was about my most important story.

What was my lead story?

In other words, what took priority over the other stories of the day? If there was one important thing (and only one thing) to share today, what would it be?

For instance: a local professional coach getting fired usually takes priority over another team from somewhere else signing a backup player to a contract.

In life, we know that there are five crucial areas of fulfillment. These are your top priorities. The things your annual rundown should take into account if you plan to live your best life.

Satisfy these areas and you’ll be in a pretty solid place.

Health
The older you get, the more important your physical, mental, and emotional health become.

It doesn’t have to be some 75 Hard Challenge with a chaser of the carnivore diet to get healthier.

Even a simple approach to your nutrition and a minimalist workout regime can get you into the best shape of your life.

Career
Are you good at what you do? Do you even like what you do? Can you keep up the pace of your current career path? Is it time to find a new job or career or even start your own?

If your moneymaker ain’t doing it for you, it might be time to really focus on an alternative.

Relationships
Set aside time for loved ones. Family. Friends. Chat with your barista. We need more human interaction. More connection.

Make sure you are nurturing your existing relationships, even a few minutes per day can help.

Learning
One of the reasons why time starts to fly by as we age is we stopped learning and challenging ourselves daily.

After formal schooling, we throw up our hands and proclaim that the learning has been accomplished and we just coast now.

But your mind atrophies this way and that’s just another path to slow death.

What can you learn over the next 12 months? Maybe it’s a better way forward with your career or health or just something that interests you.

Find it.

Play
What lights you up? Is there something you’ve been putting off for years because you are “too old” or because you “don’t have enough time?”

Make today the day you start figuring out how to add more fun and meaningful things into your daily life.

Play is not just for kids, as I point out in this newsletter, you need to find more time to play as an adult.

If you spent the next year really laser-focused on those big five pillars, you’d be unrecognizable in one year’s time.

Some months, weeks, days, you’ll focus more intently on health or career. Other days, you might dive deeper into learning, or by prioritizing your own downtime with play.

But each of those five pillars should receive some love in your overall vision and rundown for the year.

Even just 15 minutes per day adds up to over 91 hours of focus.

Let’s figure out how to make the time and add these priorities into your own “rundown” so it doesn’t feel like you’re constantly flying by the seat of your pants and making it up as you go.

It starts by determining the big moments.

Think about the big moments over the next year

I’ve got two young kids and run my own business so I really understand how time is limited. Which is why I have to break my year down. And it starts with the big annual markers.

As you plan to make 2025 the best year of your life, you are going to ask what big things are coming up on the calendar.

List out the things you already know will take up some space on your calendar:

• Birthdays
• Vacations
• Conferences
• Sporting events
• School calendar of events

Some of my upcoming events in 2025 include:

• Spring break vacation with my family
• Summer vacation at home with my kids
• Start of school in the Fall
• My birthday in October
• Annual football trip with my buddies
• The birthdays for my wife and kids
• Holiday travel to my in-laws

Each of these events are baked into my rundown for the year already.

And I can now work around them to keep planning out the rest.

Break the year down into quarters and then months

You can get a lot done in just three months with a specific gameplan.

Break up your vision for the year into the four quarters and think about what you can achieve with focus and prioritization.

Was getting in shape included in your vision for a successful 2025? Great. What can you do in each quarter of the year to make that a reality?

• Maybe you start with walking and light mobility in the first quarter.
• In the second quarter, you start really prioritizing diet and nutrition by toying around with portion control for your protein and ensuring you get adequate fiber from plants.
• Then you seek out a decent coach in the third quarter to learn how to strength train (or you decide it’s time to create your own minimalist program).
• In the fourth quarter, this leaves room for you to explore a physical challenge like training to nail a handstand, or running a 5K (or even a marathon).

Set some big (but realistic) goals for yourself and write them down with intention.

A few of my quarterly goals in the past have included:

• Launch my LevelUp newsletter
• Lose 8-10 pounds by summer
• Get serious about short-form content writing
• Decrease summer workload so I can spend more time with my kids during their summer break

This doesn’t mean that my other priorities are ignored when I’m focusing on my newsletter. It just meant that the newsletter was my primary focus. It was the lead story in my rundown.

• Maybe the Summer is the season of play and that’s your big priority: to slow things down as much as possible and prioritize more personal fulfillment.
• The Fall when the kids go back to school is usually my time to focus on building up my business with any relevant projects (I take it really slow over the summer to hang out with my kids).
• Winter can be the time you get in great shape so you’re beach ready for the warmer months.
• Spring can be the season of learning something new and interesting whether that’s for personal or professional reasons.

It doesn’t mean that you ignore play or learning in the Fall when you’re building, it just means that building is the primary goal during that season.

What are some things you can accomplish over the first three months to make 2025 the best year of your life?

Get creative and list them out.

Break those quarterly goals down into monthly objectives

You’ve got an overarching goal for the entire year and a focus for each of the quarters. What must you do in order to hit that quarterly goal?

Do you have monthly obligations that you consider non-negotiable?

Date night with your partner?

Solo time with your kids (father-daughter date, etc)?

Spa day?

Map these out, then start thinking about the time you’d like to spend on your big goals for the year to actualize that vision.

Are there specific things you need to do monthly in order to make this all work?

If you plan on taking a course to learn better marketing skills, do you have assignments to complete? Zoom calls to join? Books to read?

List them out.

Determine your weekly plan to take action

Now we’re really getting somewhere.

You’ve done the macro by looking at the big vision for the year and where you’d like to be. Now let’s break it down to the micro level so you can finally take action.

This is what sets you apart from the millions of others that will create new year resolutions … only to fail.

Now you will add your weekly goals, action items and priorities to fill out your own rundown.

The key is to think small and slow instead of the usual “go big or go home” approach to resolutions.

For example:
“I want to get in shape” is not specific enough.

What are the weekly levers you need to pull to make that happen? List out all of the behaviors you must practice each week:

• Walk daily
• Workout at least once or twice a week
• Eat 5-6 meals at home instead of a restaurant
• Grocery shopping weekly
• Connecting with a loved one daily or weekly
• Extracurricular school activities that you attend

What are the weekly classes, happy hours, lunches, meetings you need to plan for to build the lifestyle you designed?

List them all out. Then schedule them all out.

It’s not enough to want to start a new habit. You must be intentional about when you will practice that new habit.

Want to workout more in 2025? Schedule your workouts into your week.

Is reading more in 2025 a goal of yours? Block out a specific time when you’ll pick up a book.

Do you want to find a better job or even build your own business in the new year? Find the pockets of time in your week to focus on your lever-moving behaviors to make it reality.

If you fail to do this, you will eventually get distracted.

It could be your kids, the office or even your smartphone (here’s how to start breaking that phone addiction in 2025).

Once you get distracted, it’ll be difficult to keep your momentum going and then you’ll get bogged down, overwhelmed, annoyed at yourself and then burned out.

Then you’ll quit.

Simply put … if you don’t prioritize your time, someone else will.

Think BIG but start small to make 2025 the best year of your life

If you’ve done this entire exercise, you now have the year mapped out and should have an idea of the weekly habits you must practice to make this dream a reality.

As always, the path to success is never linear and you must understand that even the best gameplan might need to be tweaked as the year goes on.

There were times when I’d have my ideal sportscast all planned out and ready to go, but then breaking news would happen and it would force me to alter that plan.

Sometimes I’d get less time than originally planned and would need to remove a story or two to adapt.

Other times, new developments would pop up after I already wrote out the scripts or edited the highlights and I’d need to tweak accordingly.

This happens in life, too.

Maybe a new job situation forces you to rethink your summer of play or that monthly standing meeting with your massage therapist.

But having this overall master rundown (or annual plan) means you are ahead of the game. You can see where the holes are so you can fluctuate and adapt.

Don’t toss out the entire plan when something throws you off.

Sit back down. Evaluate. Take another look at your vision for the year and goals.

Then figure out the best path forward to get back on track.

That’s how you’re going to win and make this the best year of your life.

I’m rooting for you.

I hope you found this useful. If so, I’d appreciate it if you sent this newsletter to one person you think would benefit from my writing.

And as always, if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.

I answer all of my emails at pete [at] petecataldo [.] com … Hit me up with the subject line “make 2025 the best year of your life” and I’ll answer any questions you have to make this work for you.

Until next time,
Pete