Episode 104: Word of the Year for 2025: How to Set Intentions and Achieve Your Goals
Discipline's my word, and in that spirit, I want to share with you a couple of changes that you're going to see in season 3, looking ahead, the beginning of the year, we'll launch with really amazing guest experts, and guest interviews that we've captured. They're all experts in their field, really heavy sales gurus.
You're listening to Prospecting on Purpose, where we discuss all things, prospecting, sales, business, and mindset. I'm your host, Sara Murray, a sales champion, who's here to show you that you can be a shark in business and still lead with intentionality and authenticity. Tune in each week as we dive into methods to connect with clients, communicate with confidence, and close the deal.
Welcome back to Prospecting on Purpose. I feel like part of adulthood is just saying, wow, time goes by so fast, time flies, etc. etc. until we die. So once again, we've wrapped up a second season of the show. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for being here. This is going to be a pretty quick episode, mainly because I just did a four-part mini-series on reflecting over the past two years and 100 episodes.
So I'm not going to spend any time on reflection here. If you want to listen to that, it's Episode 98 through 101. What I do want to focus on today is, instead giving a little look into the year ahead and this time of year, and of course, in January, we hear a lot of workshops, podcast episodes, conversations around goal setting and rituals and, you know, understanding where we want to go.
What are the lessons that we've learned? What are the gaps we need to fill and all of that is, I think, really crucial to our own personal and professional development. I think it's really vital to carve out time and invest in yourself and spend time on that. But what I do want to share with you in this episode is just a small little ritual, nothing crazy or major.
But it's something I've done the past couple of years and I'm starting to hear other people doing it and it's fun and it's simple and it's just kind of a way to streamline where your attention's going, and you've probably heard that phrase where focus goes, energy flows, and I'm a big believer in that.
In today's world, we're so busy. There's so much coming at us all the time. We have to be on, we have to be responsive, all those things. It can get hard to just stay focused. And so as we just covered, a year goes by fast. You don't need to accomplish everything in your year, but really what I'm going to encourage you to do what I'm doing for myself and I'll share it here is to just pick a word of the year.
What is your word of the year going to be? And it could be around. What's the intention for the year? What do you want to bring into your life? What do you want to focus on? What do you want to achieve? How do you want to feel? What qualities do you want to embody? This is your word. No one has to know it.
It's just something kind of special for you. Example words could be growth, balance, courage, joy, focus, strength, resilience, and clarity, alignment, peace, grace, energy, explore. Maybe your word is just “no” or boundaries. Somebody shared with me the other day, their word of the year is just no. And they have it on their wall.
The past two years were a little more woo-woo. 2023 was abundance. 2024 was receive, and the word that keeps coming up for me going into 2025 is a little bit more sharp. And what I'm personally focusing on right now and leading into the new year is discipline.
And I debated that for a while, making that my word of the year because it feels a little bit harsh, and I think my attitude towards the word discipline has had a bit of a negative connotation. But when I think about what actually helps me execute, and what really helps me manage what I'm juggling and I have some pretty big goals and they're a little bit all over the place and what I want to do and where I want to go. All of this is going to require discipline.
I think I do an okay job of practicing discipline, but it's something that I want to focus on and improve on. And so instead of just shying away from the word or putting it in a category where it feels kind of yucky or having resistance to it, I want to embrace it as my word of the year and being vigilant and relentless in the pursuit of my goals.
And in the spirit of discipline, I want to share some of the things to expect in season 3. So we are bringing a couple of changes. One of the things just to give you a peek into the short term is that we're going to start January with some pretty heavy hitting sales experts.
So we have quite a few guests on the show for the month of January, pretty heavily in sales authenticity, what makes successful salespeople, and how do you influence your different spheres of influence. You know, we talk about this a lot on the show. Obviously it's a sales lens on our podcast. But even if you're not in sales, I'd encourage you to listen to these guests because every single one of us has to influence in some way or another.
We've had some really great interviews, some really heavy hitters. So I'd recommend you listen to the guests in January, and then if you're looking at an opportunity on how to kind of tune-up. during the holidays, go back and listen to two episodes of this show if you have not yet heard them, Episode 38 is Best Tips in Creating and Maintaining Sales Forecasts, Episode 39 is CRM Customer Relationship Management, CRM Basics. So if you're looking at how you're going to reverse engineer and hit your goals, there's a ton of episodes on this show that will help you. Those two are particularly good if you're in a sales role.
And then the other thing, you know, that's kind of the immediate future long term for 2025. We're launching a couple of things. Mainly, you know, I love doing the show. I've learned a lot of lessons. I've met amazing people, but 1 of the things that I feel was missing for me personally, is that I'd like to have more of a 2-way communication and connection. And, you know, podcasts are kind of tricky because it's one way and that's you hopefully know me by now, I really love people. I love the interaction that I've been able to have so I want to do more of that, and I think having more live elements to the show will make it just a little bit more fresh, Poppy if you will and so for season three, we're gonna do more live elements And of course in the cutest of fashions, we're gonna call them POP Up events, POP for Prospecting on Purpose, and then this will be in the form of live interviews on the show.
Those will be hosted on LinkedIn Live. We'll probably do two a month. They will also stream on YouTube live. So whichever platform works for you. And then, of course, the recording of the show will be published after the live event as an episode.
So if you miss the live event, you will find a way to capture it on the podcast itself, but what's really exciting about this is that we can engage with each other, we can network, we can ask questions of our awesome guests. So I'm really looking forward to the live element of the show
And then I'm also going to host like, a pop-up office hours slash online networking event, potentially in-person networking, you know, 2nd, half of next year, but really just wanting to use this as an opportunity to learn and grow as a group. Because what I have found is there's a lot of connection points with each other. But I want to serve as a vehicle, have the podcast service, a vehicle to orchestrate that.
So if you'd like to stay in the loop on the live events for 2025, you can register to receive updates at saramurray.com forward slash podcast. If we are not yet connected on LinkedIn, please add me. It's @Saramurraysales. That's the same for the YouTube channel. Subscribe over there at Saramurraysales.
Everything's going to be really fun in the new year. I'm looking forward to it. I think we have a good thing going and now it's just time to elevate and step it up. And to wrap up this episode, I wish you and your families and end of the year. That's filled with joy, Love, health, rest, reflection, and a very happy new year in the upcoming year.
See you next year for season three of Prospecting on Purpose.
Thank you so much for listening to the Prospecting on Purpose podcast. If you loved what you heard today, subscribe to the podcast and please rate and leave a review for more info on me, or if you'd like to work together, feel free to go to my website.
Saramurray. com on social media. I'm usually hanging out at Saramurraysales. Thanks again for joining me and I'll see you next time.
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