7 Tips to Fail-Proof Your Business Goals in 2025 as a Female Leader

According to a Forbes poll from 2024, 66% of people gave up on their New Year’s goals by the 4-month mark, while only 6% passed the 1-year mark and created long-lasting change in their lives.

As someone who has supported entrepreneurs for over 7 years, I’ve had the privilege of helping many small business owners and leaders create 5-to-10-year visions, clarify their short-term goals, and take aligned action to make what started as a dream, a tangible reality.

I’ve also seen how challenging it can be to follow through on goals, especially when things aren’t working in your favour or when challenges arise (like changes in the algorithm, team members not performing, client difficulties, changes or challenges in your personal life or a launch not getting the buzz you anticipated).

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, approximately 20% of businesses fail within the first year, and 50% fail within the first 5 years.

The New Year in Western culture offers an opportunity to slow down, reflect and get clear on what we want to accomplish over the next 12 months.

Yet, many female leaders are either moving so quickly that they don’t take the time to reflect OR they are reflecting but not considering these 7 things when creating their vision and annual goals… Often leading to disappointment come December when they realize they haven’t moved much closer to their vision.

Let’s talk about fail-proofing your business goals this year so that come December, you’ll be celebrating your accomplishments!

1. Reflect on your accomplishments from last year.

When it comes to goal setting, most high achievers and business owners automatically focus on the negative and what didn’t go as planned, or they look ahead to the future without acknowledging all of the efforts they’ve put in already.

Whether you reached your goals last year or not, you made progress in some way shape or form (sometimes progress even looks as ‘small’ as getting clear on what you don’t want). Acknowledging your efforts and accomplishments is an important part of the goal-setting process, but more importantly, helps to foster a positive mindset by training your mind to focus on the good. A positive mindset is vital to accomplishing your goals with more ease and seeing your progress with more clarity.

Reflection: What did you accomplish last year? What went well for you? What are you most proud of?

Incorporating a regular practice of reflecting on your accomplishments as you move throughout the year is a key tool to fail-proof your business goals. Only seeing what hasn’t happened yet is a common automatic human tendency that many high achievers and entrepreneurs face, however, it’s not only discouraging — it can also distract you from your bigger vision.

2. Foster an objective perspective.

One of the biggest setbacks of leaders and entrepreneurs that I see in my practice is that they take their results too personally. At the end of the day, business isn’t personal and the only way you can truly assess where you’re at, paint the picture of where you’re headed and move toward that vision is by being neutral about your progress.

Instead of outsourcing your power by blaming a situation or circumstance (ex. “my tech isn’t working today”, “my website designer fell off the face of the earth” or my favourite “the algorithm isn’t showing my content”), creating an objective viewpoint will help you to more accurately assess where you’re at with your goals and what action to take next.

Here are some tips that help myself and my clients see from a more objective perspective:

• Take some deep breaths and connect with your body. Notice where any tension lies and focus on relaxing your muscles. Pay attention to your breathing.
• Step out of your business and see it as a friend or other entity rather than seeing it as yourself. Imagine you’re a fly on the wall of your business or an outsider looking in: What do you see happening on a day-to-day basis? Are you seeing forward movement? Confidence? Leadership? Or are you getting lost in the busyness of admin and operations?
• Understand that your business is a direct reflection of who you’re being and what you put in. This might sound a bit contradictory to my last point, but bear with me. Again from an observer’s perspective, what do you see? How focused were you this year? Did you follow through on what you said/decided you would do? Did you get distracted? Doubt yourself? Procrastinate? Or hold back out of fear? Did you build connections with your community or spend more time-consuming other people’s content? Did ADHD or anxiety get the best of you?
• Avoid attaching meaning to or labelling what you see as something negative. Everything can be adjusted, shifted or changed. Nothing is set in stone.

Reflection: As an outsider looking in, what do you see happening in your business?

It’s extremely helpful to have a mentor or professional coach who can help you foster awareness, see different perspectives, remember the bigger picture and change your patterns or automatic behaviours that keep you stuck.

3. Identify your greatest challenges.

Every single person has unique strengths and weaknesses. Everyone and every business experiences challenges. Taking the time to reflect on what your weak points are helps to foster awareness and put systems in place to support you when you inevitably face those challenges again in the future.

You can look at your weak points in your business (perhaps in your systems, follow through or maybe slow seasons), however, remember to also reflect on your personal weak spots as the leader of your business. While we can’t always control what happens on the outside (like tech issues or algorithm changes), we can choose how we respond.

Common weaknesses my clients face are: overthinking, staying stuck in overplanning (and not taking action), self-doubt, perfectionism, procrastination, making rash decisions, limiting themselves and playing small, getting stuck in hustle mode, overworking and burning out.

How about you?

Reflection: What have been your biggest obstacles? What challenged you? What are your weaknesses as a leader? How do you want to navigate your challenges this year? What tools or support system can you lean on (mentor, coach, peers, team, meditation, podcast, etc.)?

4. Create your vision.

This is my favourite part of starting a new year! Creating a vision. With a blank page in front of you, you can choose to create whatever you desire!

This process can either feel super energizing or extremely daunting for people.

Perhaps you’re already living your vision but there’s something you want more or less of.

Maybe you’re tired from the past year and can’t even think about what’s ahead.

Or maybe you’re so far from your vision and it feels overwhelming to you. The good news is that you can make this whatever you want, no matter where you’re at.

I heard this saying years ago that resonated with me. It originated from Bill Gates: “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year, but underestimate what they can do in 10 years.”

So when you think about what you want to achieve this year, also think about what your bigger vision is for 5 years (or even 10 years) down the road. It’s okay if this changes, but having a general idea of where you’re headed is extremely helpful (otherwise you’ll likely find yourself spiralling and a little all over the place).

Reflection: If you could create any life you wanted, what would it be and why? What do you want to be known for? How do you want to spend your time? What do you want to be saying on December 31st, 2025?

In my 7+ years helping others clarify their vision, I’ve noticed a lot of people tend to write down things they *think* they should want based on the things they see others living/having. This is a big mistake as you’ll be less likely to follow through on your goals.

Instead, focus on what you genuinely enjoy, what lights you up and your WHY. Your why will connect to a bigger purpose, calling or contribution you want to make in the world. When you focus on these three things, you’ll be more likely to stick to your vision but also more likely to attract the right opportunities and clients when you do what brings you satisfaction and joy!

5. Understand your Human Design and how you are designed to reach your goals.

Similar to understanding your strengths and weaknesses, Human Design takes it a step further by giving you information about yourself to work with.

Human Design, said to be modern astrology, combines tools like the i-ching, chakra system, astrology and the Kabbalah. Calculating and understanding your Human Design chart can help you see where your gifts and challenges are and how to approach them or work with them to fully thrive!

For years I struggled to reach my goals in my business and stick to the plans I had created for myself based on traditional goal-setting methods and productivity hacks. Learning about my Human Design helped me to realize why those methods were incorrect for my design type and gave me permission to explore other methods. I learned that just because it worked for one person, doesn’t mean it will work for everyone.

For example, as a Manifesting Generator, the advice of focusing on one thing at a time doesn’t work well for me — I get bored. However, if I have too many projects on the go, I might struggle to know where to focus my energy. Understanding and connecting with my inner authority helps to guide my focus rather than wasting time overplanning (which I usually don’t end up following anyway).

If you’ve ever felt like you’re the black sheep of entrepreneurship, or other people’s strategies just don’t seem to work for you the way they promised, Human Design might be the tool you need to help you thrive in business. Honestly, I think everyone should know their Human Design chart!

If you want to learn more about Human Design and how you can use your chart to create aligned goals, click here to check out my Human Design Visioning and Goal Setting Workshop for high achievers. OR if you want me to read your chart for you (saving you tons of time and energy) click here to book a 1:1 reading with me.

6. Identify your energizing sources.

Common advice in the personal growth arena is to surround yourself with people who are smarter than you, value you, uplift you, inspire you (you get the picture).

Who you surround yourself with is important because those people will either give you positive energy that will help you to stay motivated and thrive, or take your energy by doubting your abilities or competing with you.

Similar to how looking for your accomplishments instead of always focusing on what’s not working helps to foster a positive mindset, having a source of empowerment and upliftment also has a positive impact on your mindset.

What you focus on, grows.

Have you ever had an exceptionally bad day? You wake up one morning and right off the bat your day gets thrown off-kilter. You have a hope that things will turn around but, instead, you continue to face challenge after challenge and by the end of the day you’re miserable. This is the Law of Vibration (one of the Universal Laws) at play. The Law of Vibration essentially says that all matter vibrates at a certain frequency, and similar to the Law of Attraction, like attracts like. So if you’re constantly feeling down and negative about life, expecting the worst, you can generally expect to attract more of the same negative experiences.

However, when you elevate your frequency, focus on all that is going well, and choose to put out a positive vibe, you can generally expect to receive more of the same positive experiences.

If you don’t have access to a solid group of uplifting people, you can easily create energizing sources online. Perhaps there’s a certain blog, podcast or YouTube channel that inspires you and reminds you of how powerful you are.

Here are my top 3 energizing podcast suggestions for personal growth and empowerment:

1. Manifestation Babe Podcast
2. Be Radically Authentic Podcast
3. Aligned and Magnetic Podcast

Reflection: What are your energizing sources? Where do you go to feel uplifted and empowered?

7. Create a fallback plan.

Listen, everyone gets to that part of the year where they get tired and feel like their goals just aren’t going to materialize. The temptation to give up and try something different is huge. Many people in the beginning stages of business fall into this trap — we call it shiny object syndrome.

The more you plan for a slump to happen, the better off you’ll be able to identify when it’s happening and navigate your challenges successfully. BTW — it’s helpful to have this plan written down somewhere (either on your phone or a piece of paper on your wall) so that you can easily access it when needed.

Here’s how you can make a fallback plan:

1. Use data from the past. Go back to tip #3 and highlight the biggest challenges you previously faced. Now ask yourself “How would I like to handle these differently?” and “What would I need to be capable of handling these challenges in a new way?”.
2. Make note of your weaknesses as a leader and business, and how you can be supported through those weaknesses. For example, if you easily get overwhelmed by other people’s opinions or ideas, perhaps your ‘fallback plan’ is to brain-dump all of these ideas to help create clarity on how you want to move forward. Or maybe you plan to talk it out with your coach, therapist or neutral soundingboard before making a final decision. You can use Human Design, SDI, Myers-Briggs or another self-awareness tool to support you in identifying your areas of weakness.
3. Include your energizing sources. Add podcasts, books, meditation, business and friend groups or other self-help material that re-energizes and inspires you. You could go further with this and include activities that nourish your body and soul, such as hiking, lying in the grass or spending a day with your fur babies.
4. Include a love note for yourself. It might sound cheesy but I’ve found it helpful to hear words of wisdom from myself that were written when I’m feeling my best. You can include information that you know about yourself, the things that you love and a reminder to slow down and nurture yourself.

Feel free to include anything else that you can think of that will support you during low season or personal challenges. This is your plan!

Yay! You made it through the 7 tips to fail-proof your business goals.

Lastly, you’re going to want to display all of the work you’ve put into reflecting on last year and envisioning for your upcoming year(s) somewhere that you can consistently come back to.

It’s far too easy to get pulled away or distracted from what we want to focus our attention on and create. I recommend creating a vision board and placing it where you’ll see it daily to remind yourself of your focus and stay energized to track toward your goals.

If you want to learn how to get out of your own way, work toward your goals in a way that feels aligned to you and design a Vision Board that will work specifically for you, I recommend checking out my workshop, VISION. It combines Human Design basics, mindset work, meditation, as well as Visioning and Goal-setting methods to help you clarify and move toward your vision in a way that works for you! Say goodbye to SMART goals and hello to aligned success.

Happy Visioning!

xo Lauren Ashley

Did you enjoy this read? Let me know by sending me a DM on Instagram! I’d love to hear from you.

Lauren Ashley, ACC

Business Development Coach

Mindset + Manifestation QUEEN

Host of the Aligned & Magnetic Podcast

Creator of the Aligned, Magnetic + Profitable™ framework

Helping female leaders and high achievers make their vision for their life and business a reality and doing it in a way that lights them up!