Stepping into 2025: my goals for the year ahead

PersonalLifestyle

7 Jan

LOOKING FORWARD TO THE YEAR AHEAD

“2024 was a huge year for me both personally and professionally, and 2025 is already shaping up to be much the same.”

Well, we’ve officially arrived in 2025. The start of the year always feels like a swirl of nervous anticipation as we let go of the year that was and look forward to the year ahead – and all the unknowns that come with it.

2024 was a huge year for me both personally and professionally, and 2025 is already shaping up to be much the same.

There will be some huge personal milestones (I’m getting married!), and my work as a designer is already shaping up to be big with some exciting projects in the pipeline.

As I reflect on all the big things that lie ahead – with equal anxiety and excitement, I wanted to put into words some of the smaller, more everyday ambitions I have for myself in 2025. Small, but tangible things I can work on each day to give me a solid foundation of progress, accomplishment and inspiration to tackle the bigger things that come my way.

1. Take more photos

On the last day of 2024, we packed the kiddos (Boston and George, our Frenchies) into the car for the ten-minute drive to one of our favourite places in Canberra – the National Arboretum.

If you’ve been following along for any length of time, you probably know that photography has always been a huge passion of mine.

Over the last few years it’s something that I feel like I haven’t invested as much time in – not because I ever fell out of love with it, just through prioritising other things.

As we walked around the Arboretum and I furiously snapped my camera at everything in sight, I was reminded how much I love it and how I want to make more time for it in 2025 – whether that’s on a personal or professional level.

So, you heard it hear first, you’ll be seeing a lot more photos from me this year.

2. Grow more food

At the start of 2024, we hard launched two large raised garden beds in our backyard so we could invest in growing more of our own food.

It was a successful first year, with eleventy million tomatoes, many ugly carrots, and countless eggplants grown.

This year I would love to invest more time in growing a wider range of veg, and working with the seasons to maximise our yield.

We already have sweet potato, leek, fennel, eggplants, tomatoes, kale and more underway so stay tuned for more veggie updates!

3. Indulge in more cooking

I think I invested in cooking and trying new recipes more than any other year last year, and I want to do even more of that in 2025.

Cooking is something I really only became interested in once I moved out of home – if you ask my family, they’ll probably tell you that I’m the worst cook they’ve ever met.

But I feel like I’ve really come into my own in the kitchen over the last few years, and I’m excited to keep growing in this space in the year ahead.

Friday nights are for homemade pizza (always), and I want to experiment more with new wholesome and healthy recipes for lunch and dinner wherever I can.

Who knows, I might even share some of them with you too!

4. Book more dream projects

Aside from the huge(!) milestones I have coming up personally, I also have a big year ahead in the design space.

I have a number of multi-res projects launching this year at work that are sure to keep me very busy, but I’m also working on some exciting additions to Raego Creative.

I have always been the type to have multiple passion projects on the go, and this year I hope to be able to bring some of them to life.

I’d also love to be able to book some more projects in the interior design and styling space in 2025 – whether that be in interior design or styling itself, or websites, branding or photography of interior projects (manifesting over here!).

Aside from these goals, I’d also love to grow my business in some other ways:

Grow my email list and launch a newsletter
Collaborate with likeminded designers
Add more products to my digital pattern and template ranges

As the first week of the year comes to a close, it’s inspiring to put down these ambitions for the year ahead – not just to share them with you, but also as a way to keep myself accountable.

I’m so excited for what 2025 has to bring for me both at home and as a designer, and I’ve love for you to follow along for the ride.

You can find me on Instagram or Threads via @raegocreative, or sign up to my incoming (hopefully) newsletter at the bottom of this page.