Align with your values and shine your light bright in 2025
Are you ready for 2025?
A new year is a blank canvas—a chance to start fresh, set intentions, and design a life that reflects your truest self. It’s an opportunity to pause, reflect, and commit to the kind of person, professional, and leader you want to be. While resolutions often fade, intentions grounded in your values can guide you all year long, helping you show up authentically and create meaningful progress.
As we step into 2025, how will you align your values, embrace your emotions, and lead with intention?
This year can be the one where you reconnect with your purpose, balance the demands of life, and shine as the leader you’re meant to be.
Why Values Are the Foundation of Success
Values are more than just words—they’re the compass that guides your decisions, shapes your relationships, and defines success on your terms. When your actions align with your values, you feel energized, purposeful, and authentic. But when they’re out of sync, frustration, dissatisfaction, and burnout often follow.
Take a moment to reflect:
What are your core values?
How do they influence your priorities and choices?
Are there areas where your current path feels out of alignment?
For example, if one of your values is creativity but your schedule leaves no room for exploration, it might leave you feeling stifled. If connection is important to you, yet your relationships are on the back burner, you may feel isolated.
This year, let your values guide your intentions. Whether your focus is growth, courage, family, or integrity, use your values as a touchstone for how you spend your time, make decisions, and show up in the world.
Set Intentions, Not Just Goals
Intentions differ from goals in that they focus on how you want to be, not just what you want to do. While goals might include career progression, financial milestones, or fitness achievements, intentions are about how you approach life with presence, purpose, and authenticity.
For instance:
Instead of setting a goal to “get a promotion,” your intention might be to “lead with courage and creativity.”
Rather than aiming to “be more organized,” you might intend to “create space for what truly matters.”
Setting intentions allows you to stay connected to your values, even when external circumstances change. They provide a sense of direction and fulfilment that goes beyond ticking boxes on a to-do list.
Word of the Year
One way to anchor your intentions is by choosing a word of the year. This simple practice helps you focus on what matters most, acting as a guiding light for your decisions, actions, and mindset.
What word resonates with your hopes and dreams for 2025? Perhaps it’s balance, reminding you to create harmony between work and life. Maybe it’s courage, encouraging you to step outside your comfort zone. Or perhaps it’s growth, signifying a commitment to learning and evolving.
Want to know my word of the year? Check my posts on social media, and feel free to share yours! Let’s inspire each other as we step into this new year with clarity and intention.
Emotions as Your Compass
If values are your foundation, emotions are your compass, gently guiding you toward alignment and deeper self-awareness. They offer invaluable insight into what energizes, frustrates, or inspires you, acting as a tender reflection of your inner world.
In professional settings, emotions can be overlooked in favour of logic and strategy, yet they are essential to understanding yourself and leading others. Embracing your emotions allows you to nurture a stronger connection to who you are and how you want to show up.
For example:
Excitement can gently encourage you to explore opportunities for growth or innovation.
Frustration might softly signal that something isn’t aligned with your values or needs.
Doubt can become an invitation to seek clarity and lean into courage with compassion for yourself.
When you learn to nurture and understand your emotions, they become a source of wisdom and energy. As a leader, modelling emotional awareness creates an environment of trust, empathy, and genuine connection for your team.
This year, give yourself permission to pause, feel, and reflect. Let your emotions guide you toward what truly matters, helping you move through challenges and celebrate successes with grace and authenticity.
Balancing the Demands on Your Time and Energy
Life is full of competing priorities. Whether you’re navigating a leadership role, managing family responsibilities, or pursuing personal growth, it’s easy to feel pulled in multiple directions. Without intentionality, the demands on your time and energy can lead to exhaustion or disengagement.
This year, commit to balancing your time and energy in ways that honour your values and intentions. Here are some strategies:
Set Boundaries: Say no to what doesn’t align with your priorities. Boundaries aren’t just protective—they’re empowering.
Prioritize Rest and Renewal: What recharges you? Whether it’s movement, creativity, or quiet moments, make space for activities that restore your energy.
Delegate and Empower: Leadership isn’t about doing everything yourself. Trust your team, delegate tasks, and give others opportunities to grow.
Be Present: When you’re with your family, at work, or engaging in self-care, practice being fully present.
Balancing your time and energy isn’t about perfection—it’s about making choices that reflect your values and intentions, even when life feels busy.
Leading with Intention and Empathy
Leadership is not just about hitting targets or achieving outcomes—it’s about inspiring and empowering others to reach their full potential. At its heart, leadership is a deeply relational practice. It’s about how you show up, how you connect, and how you create an environment where others can thrive.
Leading with intention starts with understanding your own values and aligning your actions with them. It’s about having clarity on the kind of leader you aspire to be and committing to showing up authentically in every interaction. When you lead with intention, you create a sense of trust and consistency that people can rely on, even in uncertain times.
Empathy is the bridge that connects you to those you lead. It allows you to see the world through their eyes, understand their challenges, and celebrate their successes. Empathy doesn’t mean solving every problem for your team—it’s about creating the space for them to feel heard, valued, and supported.
Here are a few ways to bring intention and empathy into your leadership this year:
Be Clear on Your Purpose: Take time to reflect on why you lead and what impact you want to have. Knowing your purpose grounds you in moments of challenge and helps you make decisions with clarity and conviction.
Foster Open Communication: Create a culture where team members feel safe sharing their ideas, concerns, and feedback. Actively listen without judgment and respond with understanding and curiosity.
Celebrate Strengths and Contributions: Recognize and appreciate the unique strengths each team member brings. When people feel valued, they’re more likely to stay engaged, motivated, and committed to shared goals.
Lead by Example: Model the behaviours and attitudes you want to see in others. Show integrity in your actions, vulnerability (as appropriate), and resilience in the face of challenges.
Be Present: In a world of constant distractions, presence is a powerful gift. When you’re with your team, give them your full attention. Being truly present shows that you care and builds deeper connections.
Balance Compassion with Accountability: Leading with empathy doesn’t mean avoiding tough conversations. It means addressing challenges with respect, understanding, and a focus on growth.
Leadership is also about recognizing that you don’t have to have all the answers. It’s about being open to learning, admitting when you’re unsure, and creating a culture where everyone feels empowered to contribute.
When you lead with intention and empathy, you not only build stronger teams—you also cultivate a legacy of trust, collaboration, and mutual respect. This approach inspires others to step into their own leadership potential, creating a ripple effect of positivity and progress.
As you move through 2025, consider the impact you want to have on those around you. How can you be a role model for your team, leading with purpose, kindness, and authenticity? By aligning your actions with your values and nurturing meaningful connections, you can create a culture where everyone—including yourself—can shine.
How Coaching Can Support Your Intentions
If you’re ready to make 2025 a year of alignment, growth, and fulfilment, coaching can provide the support and clarity you need. My coaching programs are designed to help you reconnect with your values, harness your emotions, and take intentional steps toward your goals.
Here’s how we can work together:
Leadership Development Coaching (£2,222): Build confidence, clarity, and authenticity as a leader. Perfect for values-led leaders ready to inspire others.
Career Radiance Packages (from £297): Rediscover your passion, navigate transitions, and align your career with your values.
Express Coaching (£99): A focused session to shine a light on specific challenges or decisions.
NEW for 2025: Emotions Coaching - Learn to understand and work with your emotions, unlocking clarity, energy, and growth. Ideal for anyone ready to explore the connection between emotions and leadership. More Information coming soon.
Coaching isn’t just about achieving goals—it’s about uncovering what truly matters and creating a life that reflects your values.
Your Commitment to 2025
This year, I invite you to make a commitment: to yourself, your values, and the kind of life and leadership you want to create. Let 2025 be the year you:
Align your actions with your values.
Lead with authenticity and purpose.
Balance the demands on your time and energy with clarity and intention.
To help you I have created some coaching prompts. You can download from the resources page on my website here (if you are a VIP and on the mailing list check your email).
Are you ready to shine your light and make this your most fulfilling year yet?
Let’s start the conversation.
Reach out to book a discovery call to learn more about how coaching can help you thrive in 2025.
Let’s make 2025 the year you shine brighter than ever!
About Rae
Rae is an experienced coach dedicated to empowering women. With a background of working with hundreds of leaders in her extensive NHS career in 2023 Rae took a leap of faith and followed her heart into founding Coaching Women to Shine. Her vision is to inspire women to live authentically and in harmony with their values, helping them find alignment in both their professional and personal lives. Rae’s approach is values-driven, and she brings genuine passion to her work, fostering growth, confidence, and clarity for each of her clients. Through a personalized, empowering journey, Rae encourages women to embrace their strengths, reconnect with their aspirations, and lead lives that truly resonate with who they are at their core.