10 Journal Prompts I'm Using To Start 2025

Someone recently told me their favorite holiday is New Years Eve, because it’s an opportunity to reflect and set goals for the coming year. I like that…

It’s a very important, impactful exercise to do.

I personally use the following prompts to reflect on the prior year, reset for the coming one, and focus in on what I want to accomplish.

I like to carve out one hour of undistracted time to focus on this exercise and write it all out. The time spent is offset tenfold by the increased clarity, focus, and structure brought into the new year.

Journal Prompts To Start 2025

Reflections on 2024

1. Monthly Recap
   
   Sometimes I don’t know what I had for breakfast. Let alone do I know what mindset I was in back in March. I like to start my process by reflecting at a high-level where I was at in life—physically and mentally—in each of the prior year’s months.
   

2. If 2024 was a chapter in the book of my life, what would the chapter title have been?
   

   Got this one from Mantalks. Such a thought-provoking question.
   

3. How did I do in terms of my goals set to start 2024?
   
   If this is your first year journaling to start a year, try to recall what your goals were going into 2024. Did you have fitness, wealth, relationship, or personal development goals?
   

4. What were my biggest accomplishments? What goals did I not achieve or pursue?
   
   For me, it’s okay if I decided not to pursue a goal I originally had because I realized it wasn’t the right goal.
   

5. What did I start doing in 2024? What did I let go of and stop?

Going Into 2025

6. List your goals: health; wealth; relationships; personal development (skills and experiences). Try to be as specific as possible, add detail, and make them measurable if you can. Think big.
   
   Example from me:
   
   Health: Train Muay Thai 3x/week for at least six months. Lift weights 3x/week. Weigh 180 lbs. Correct posture via 10 min/day posture routine, done daily.
   

7. If you were to look back on 2025 as a 90-year-old, what would make it a memorable, accomplished, and outstanding year?
   

8. What have you been avoiding that you can take action on in 2025? Set a date for when you will act and how.
   
   Examples: I’ve always wanted to travel solo and will finally do so in February to Costa Rica; I’ve been letting my boss slap me around and I want to finally assert myself and set boundaries in our next meeting; I want to start my dream business and will begin drafting the business plan in March.
   

9. What themes, if any, are common throughout most of your answers? What conclusion can you draw?
   
   Example: I notice I really want to prioritize wealth generation this year.
   

10. Bonus: long-form journal on exactly how you want your life to look five years from now. The more detail, the better. Where will you live, who will you be with, how do you earn money, what color are your bed sheets? Everything.
    
    It never ceases to amaze me how powerful this is. The more detail you provide your subconscious mind, the more information it has to go to work making it happen. This can be 10 pages long if you want. The idea is to check back each year and see how far you’ve progressed—you’d be surprised.

Here’s to a 2025 full of success, wealth, love, great relationships, travel, gratitude, wonderful experiences, and accomplished goals.

To your growth and travels,

CT

@Grow Dangerously

P.S. You could’ve done this all in a fancy leather journal with tons of other prompts ready to go too, had you just referred 3 people to the newsletter… smh