As much as I love a good SMART goal, I’ve got another framework that can really make your life fulfilling.

I’ve written so much in the past on my blog and IG about creating yearly themes, and I’m excited to get a bit more granular about goal setting in this post today!

See, I used to set BIG external goals for myself every year, and – let’s be honest – they were mostly business related (I have a lot more to say about this in upcoming posts so stay tuned). External goals look like going to the gym X number of times a week, losing Y amount of weight, saving Z amount of money, launching ABC business ideas etc. They often need actionable external effort which is normally quantifiable.

I also love to themify my years (themes in the past have ranged from inspiration to stability) in accordance to the internal shifts I wanted to create. My goals usually aligned with these themes.

In this season of my life (early years motherhood) I know I do not have the stability to set big goals for myself. Life with a toddler is unpredictable for starters, but I also know that my identity isn’t completely redefined yet. I want to let the pieces fall into place before I set myself any long term goals. Quite honestly anything longer than a month away feels too far in the future for me to plan for just now.

I know a lot of my clients can relate to this too. I’m a private yoga teacher, and mainly work with busy professionals, entrepreneurs, and primary/mental-load-carrying parents – all of whom have a jam-packed schedule that can at times struggle to accommodate life’s curveballs.

If you fit in one (or more) of those groups, you’ll know that setting external goals can go straight out the window if your child is sick or you have a huge project deadline to meet. It’s so easy to get unmotivated or dejected when we’re flicking between being on/off target with our goals. For this reason, I love overarching themes for the year, rather than specific goals.

A theme can tie lots of broader goals together. I’m really nurturing this identity rebirth initiated by motherhood, and for that reason my theme for 2025 is HOME.

My body – coming home to my body (which has been so neglected over the last 2.5 years). I’m excited to rebuild a relationship with the practices that have nourished me for so long but feel so alien of late. I want my body to feel strong, flexible and able, not the aching, stiff and unbalanced state that it is in just now.

My house – making my house a home after we stripped it back in 2021 with the aim of redoing everything … and instead ending up a 90% SAHM with limited time/energy/financial resources

My work – building stable foundations so that my business can seamlessly gather momentum once I have the capacity to expand some more

Now, I’m not committing to a set workout, bodywork, redecorating or business strategy schedule. There are no deadlines. I have a vague framework for each that I can adapt without feeling like a failure.

It feels good to lose the pressure. As our lives moves through different seasons, a beautiful lesson in moving forwards is learning to detach ourselves from our external achievements and not take things personally when goalposts change.

I found that when I made myself huge external goals in this season, I’d end up losing trust in myself when I couldn’t nail them. Not hitting my goals wasn’t a reflection of myself, more my life at the time, and even though I knew that I still felt my confidence take a hit.

Now I know that taking that pressure off by having a theme that I can be creative within really works for me. There’s no self judgement, nothing to prove, and I feel my self-trust building every time that I am able to work within that theme.

This autumn I’ll be launching something huge. If you’re looking for support with improving your lifestyle and productivity and reducing chronic stress then you need this. Go sign up to my newsletter to be the first to hear.