Make 2025 your Best and Remember Life is a Marathon not A Sprint

 

As Angela Duckworth says, “Grit is passion and perseverance towards long-term goals.” I found this to be true because if you have a long-term vision for your life, you will be able to meet short-term setbacks with the appropriate level of poise.

The first step to viewing life as a marathon is to clearly define a vision for your life. Here, I have expanded each letter of the word marathon to highlight the principles that can guide you toward a more fulfilling journey.

Mastery

When you have a long-term view of life, you will understand that mastery is the key to a fulfilled life. The key to mastery is to identify the area you need to master. You cannot spread your energy in too many directions—focus is the key. So decide exactly the area where you need to improve. It doesn’t matter if you don’t play the piano well because that is not a key result area for you. On the other hand, there is a lot of research showing that having a specialized focus in one area is good while having complementary skills in other areas. For example, if you are in sales but also have delivery skills, you can have a better career trajectory.

In 2025, commit to lifelong learning. Dedicate specific hours each week to deepen your expertise in your chosen area while developing complementary skills that align with your goals. Mastery is a journey, and each step forward brings more confidence and purpose.

Action

When something goes wrong, it is the action you take to make it better that is the key to keeping your emotions in check. The only cure for worry is action toward your long-term goals. Keep pushing toward your personal frontiers and treat your short-term setbacks as a pebble on the beach. If you take some sort of action daily toward your end result, you will be able to face your problems with much more gusto. Whenever any of us feel down, if we immediately get into action that makes us progress toward our goals, we will immediately feel better about ourselves.

To make 2025 a year of impact, focus on consistent daily action. Break your big goals into small, manageable steps and track your progress. Each action, no matter how small, contributes to the bigger picture of your success.

Responsibility

You will find this word mentioned in every success book. That is because it is very important to a fulfilled life. From Jim Rohn to Stephen Covey to Jack Canfield, all of them talk about taking responsibility for the way your life looks. When you take complete responsibility for your life, you feel calmer and more in control. This, however, does not mean you will not encounter bad things—it just means you will be able to bounce back faster. Let’s say you got a bad rating or bad score. You can feel bad for a few hours or a day, but beyond that, you take complete responsibility for the result. You then take action to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

In 2025, embrace responsibility as empowerment. Reflect on your decisions and outcomes regularly, learning from both successes and failures. Owning your life story allows you to write its next chapter with intention and purpose.

Accept Reality

As Max De Pree observed, “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.” While this may seem to contradict the vision part, it is not. Having a vision can propel you forward, but you have to match that with the reality of the current situation. In Good to Great, Jim Collins talks about the Stockdale Paradox about the prisoner of war James Stockdale in Vietnam. He was one of the most decorated officers in the history of the U.S. Navy, and how he dealt with eight years as a prisoner of war was termed by Jim Collins as the Stockdale Paradox. He said you should accept reality but have unwavering commitment that you will thrive in the end by confronting the brutal facts.

In 2025, combine optimism with realism. Regularly assess your current situation and recalibrate your approach while staying committed to your vision. Accepting reality is not about giving up; it’s about navigating life’s complexities with clarity and resolve.

Teamwork

You cannot move forward in life without a team. No successful person made it big without a supporting team. Even Steve Jobs had a great team to execute on his ideas. There is always a team that supports you in the pursuit of your long-term goals. Never stop asking for help. We all need help in different areas of our lives, and asking for it is a sign of courage. Resolve to be a team player at work, and you will have greater joy as well.

To make 2025 your best year yet, focus on building and nurturing strong relationships within your teams. Celebrate the contributions of others and actively offer your support to them. By fostering collaboration and creating an environment of trust, you can achieve more together than you ever could alone.

Hours

Life is a marathon, but that doesn’t mean we have all the time in the world. Our time is truly limited, and this is just a reminder to use our hours on the activities that help us feel better about ourselves. It also reminds us that we have to focus on our high-leverage activities that will take us to where we want to be at the end of our lives.

In 2025, take control of your hours by prioritizing tasks that align with your long-term vision. Perform a time audit to identify activities that drain your energy or don’t add value, and replace them with actions that drive meaningful progress. Remember, every hour invested in the right areas compounds toward a better future.

Optimism

Optimism is having a generally sunny disposition to life. Even when you encounter a setback, you are able to look at the bright side of life. Gratitude is a great tool that lubricates optimism. When you are progressing toward your goals on a daily basis, you are generally happier and more optimistic. Again, the way to be optimistic is to do the things that make you happy. Find some time daily to do the activities that you get joy from.

In 2025, cultivate optimism by actively practicing gratitude. Start each day by listing three things you are grateful for, and take time to celebrate small victories. Optimism is contagious—spread it within your teams and community to inspire those around you to aim higher and do better.

Never Give Up

If we want enduring success, we cannot be impatient. Rome was not built in a day, we can’t lose weight in a week, and we can’t become world-class in a year. As researchers have confirmed, for anyone to attain mastery in their chosen craft, it requires 10,000 hours or roughly 10 years of deliberate practice. Deliberate practice is not easy; it involves sacrifices—a key word to remember when considering the long haul.

To make 2025 a year of breakthroughs, adopt resilience as your mantra. When setbacks arise, reflect on the lessons they bring and adjust your approach. Develop a ritual to reaffirm your goals daily, keeping your long-term vision front and center as you take deliberate steps toward success.

There you have it—the factors that help us understand that life is truly a marathon and not a sprint. By focusing on mastery, taking consistent action, embracing responsibility, confronting reality, fostering teamwork, managing your hours wisely, practicing optimism, and never giving up, you can make 2025 your best year yet.

The views expressed here are my own and do not represent my organization.