The New Year is the perfect time to make resolutions for all areas of your life, including your career. While most of the New Year’s resolution hype revolves around Dry January, diets like Whole30, or new exercise habits, you spend the majority of your daytime hours working. Why not set some goals to help you reach new heights in your career?
Maybe you have set career goals for 2024, or maybe you haven’t. Either way, there’s no better time than the present. In the spirit of a more successful 2025, here are 25 New Year’s Resolutions to improve your career this year, whether you’re looking to achieve them as a manager or an active job seeker. They include examples of some of the most popular New Year’s work resolutions, but also professional development goals recommended by HR executives, who know what’s important for career advancement.
25 New Year’s Resolutions 2025 New Year’s Resolutions 2025 about work
1. Take a more active role in your career.
“When it comes to career goals, it’s easy to get sidetracked, especially if you like your job or if your job is just ‘okay,’” says Nicole Smartt, author of From Receptionist to Boss (and CEO of Star Staffing!). “If you’re not sure where to start with your 2025 career resolutions, just start by committing to taking more action.”
Smartt suggests spending an afternoon creating a list of short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals for your career, brainstorming some ideas for professional development you want to work on by 2025, or starting to gather information to prepare for a raise.
2. Devote more time to creative work.
We schedule meetings and even networking lunches, but rarely do we schedule time for…just for fun. Add a meeting to your calendar each week where you spend an hour brainstorming creative ideas for your company or exploring an area of expertise that doesn’t directly align with your day-to-day work.
3. Make a commitment to take on leadership roles at work or in your free time.
Talk to your boss about taking charge of projects in 2025, apply for a promotion, or find a way to take on an active leadership role after work by volunteering. The goal is to spend 2025 familiarizing yourself with leadership and all that it entails. These skills are transferrable to all future jobs and career paths, so it’s worth pursuing.
4. Spearhead an employee health promotion initiative in your office.
2025 is the year of the “big attrition,” so many companies are struggling to find ways to retain the employees they have, including you! Consider offering a wellness program to your leadership team, or volunteer to send out an employee survey to gauge which employee wellness ideas appeal to your team the most. There are plenty of wellness programs out there for every budget and industry.
5. Learn new skills
It’s one of the most classic and popular New Year’s career resolutions of all time, but it’s still relevant for 2025! Learning new skills never hurts. There are tons of career education resources out there (check out Hubspot or Skillshare ). But if you’re not sure what to learn, why not try learning Spanish? It’s a language that can benefit you in a variety of industries.
6. Set a commitment to professional networking.
Networking: It’s always daunting, but the more you do it, the better you’ll feel about it. Make a commitment to invite a coworker or professional contact out for coffee once a month, or set an alarm on your phone to catch up with a former colleague on LinkedIn every month. You’ll be amazed at what you’ll get. And a fun fact: 70-80% of jobs are never posted publicly, but instead go to internal people or employee referrals.
7. Open to “continuous” job search
Even if you love your job, having a great career is built on keeping your eyes and ears open. Subscribe to a few job boards (you might like ours at Star Staffing) or add a few https://ufabet999.app job alerts to your LinkedIn account. That way, you won’t feel “out of touch” if you find yourself needing to start looking seriously for a job for whatever reason.
8. Update your resume and LinkedIn profile regularly.
Like career resolution #7, why not make a commitment to keep your resume and LinkedIn profile up to date through 2025? It’s easier to add new skills and accomplishments when you can than to try to remember what you did five years ago.
9. Set a goal for requesting a salary increase in 2025.
You know it’s coming. “But I’m not suggesting you just walk into your boss’ office on the first day of January!” Smartt says. “There’s an art to asking for a raise and negotiating it.” Smartt recommends setting aside time to plan your request, gathering the information to back you up, and being prepared to go for it without fail.
10. If you are a leader, be intentional about improving yourself by setting transparent goals.
Whether you work in HR, are an executive overseeing a large team, or are a team manager, the more transparent your goals are, the better your team will be in 2025. Consider how you currently set and track goals, and consider how you can improve the process to get better buy-in from everyone on your team.
11. Compliment your coworkers every day.
Want more feel-good career resolutions for 2025? Try giving heartfelt compliments five days a week. We’ve got a list of plenty of compliments for coworkers here, as well as compliments that leaders can (and should) give to employees, to help guide you. You’d be surprised how much better your relationships will be if you take the time to mention the nice things your coworkers are doing.
12. Make a commitment to become a better listener.
Active listening is an art. Learn more about how to listen fully and then practice it in your daily life.
13. Be kinder to yourself, both at work and in life.
Would you describe yourself as a perfectionist? Do you often internally criticize yourself about how you handle meetings or work situations? Why not take some of the pressure off in 2025? Chances are, you’re doing better than you think, and negative self-talk isn’t good for your career.
14. Start special work
Is there something you’ve been wanting to try for years? 2025 might be the year you should make the commitment to start a side hustle. “It’s pretty old-fashioned for employers to tell employees they’re not allowed to do extra work outside of work,” he says. “Especially given that research shows that doing creative work outside of work increases employee satisfaction.” If you’re an employer or hiring manager, consider implementing a part-time-friendly policy in your workplace.
15. Negotiate additional holidays and rest.
Is your company on a tight budget or holding off on a raise? Many people don’t realize that you can sometimes negotiate additional benefits. This year, why not ask for a few more vacation days? After all, vacation is the best defense against burnout.
16. Ask your boss for more regular feedback.
This is a slight extension of the New Year’s resolution to “take a more active role in your career.” Annual performance reviews are nice (hopefully your company has them!), but you should also be reaching out to your boss more often for feedback and support. Start by aiming to meet with them once a quarter.
17. If you haven’t already, 2025 is the year you need to change.
18. Review your employee welfare in detail.
Do you really know what your company offers? Many companies offer benefits, such as access to a financial planner or discounts on public transportation to the office. Check your benefits list, especially if you haven’t looked at them since you were hired, and see if there’s anything you can take advantage of. Also, check what benefits are included in your health plan.
19. Plan (to) promote yourself.
Write down a few positions that you could move up to if you were promoted at your company. Then, search job postings on LinkedIn or Indeed to see what skills are required for those higher positions. What are you lacking? Spend the first six months of 2025 filling those skill gaps, then apply for a promotion to end 2025 in your new role.
20. Organize your digital life.
How cluttered is your email? What about your desktop? Make a career resolution to tidy things up in 2025. Not sure where to start? Here’s a digital tidying guide from the team at Marie Kondo.
To make the translation more accurate, fluent and useful, I would like to explain and add more details as follows:
- Organize your digital life: This means organizing and managing the information on your digital devices such as computers, phones, tablets, and online accounts to improve work efficiency and reduce stress.
- Inbox: Refers to your email inbox, which is usually filled with unread emails, old emails, and junk emails.
- Desktop: Refers to the main screen of a computer, usually filled with icons, files, and folders.
- Career resolution: is a determination to develop or improve things related to one’s career.
- Get things in order: means to put things in order and in their proper place.
- A guide to digital decluttering: A guide or step-by-step guide to organizing your digital information.
21. Make career resolutions to reduce procrastination.
Easier said than done, but there are many ways to gradually improve yourself to break the habit of procrastination.
22. Make a commitment to reduce multitasking.
It turns out that “working one thing at a time” or “working alone” is better for your mind and the quality of the work you create.
23. Start recording work.
Take the last 5-10 minutes of your workday to write down what you accomplished, what didn’t go as planned, and three things you’re grateful for today. Often, we rush home so quickly that we don’t give our mind a chance to process the day’s events. This simple process can have a profound impact on your happiness at work and give you guidance on what you want to accomplish tomorrow.
24. If you are looking for a job, treat it like a job.
Set aside time in your calendar to work on updating your resume, submitting inquiries, or reading job postings. Set goals for yourself just as you would for your regular job! This will help keep you motivated, train your brain to treat the job search with the same respect as your regular job, and help you keep up with the habit of staying on schedule until you find something new.
25. Find a consultant or become a consultant, or both.
Having a mentor is one of the most powerful ways to grow your career. If you don’t have a mentor in your office (or at another company in your industry), now is a great time to find one. Find someone you admire at work and consider asking them out for coffee or lunch to hear their career stories. And if you’re a senior member of your team, how can you mentor someone this year? It’s an incredibly rewarding experience for both parties, and it’s worth connecting and finding community within your company.