2025 Entrepreneurial Mindset Shifts: 6 Ways to Set Yourself Up For a Succesful Year

January 8, 2025

My birthday falls right after New Years, so this time of year always inspires me to reflect and set goals for the year. Usually, this is primarily in my personal life, but since becoming an entrepreneur, I have put some serious thought into how I want to improve in my professional life too. You’ve probably seen the “Ins and Outs for 2025” trend circling Instagram. Well, here is your 2025 Ins and Outs, entrepreneur addition! Last year was my first year in business as a Freelance Social Media Manager and Copywriter and it has been a ride, to say the least. The first several months as an entrepreneur were mostly just a whirlwind of stress and hustle. I didn’t start to find my workflow groove until the tail end of the year and it was then that I realized what areas of my workflow and business needed, well, work! During my time of reflecting and vision boarding for the year, I have come up with six key entrepreneurial mindset shifts for 2025 aimed at improving time management, productivity, skillset and inspiration to set yourself up for your best year yet and handle whatever challenges may come your way.

1.     Don’t be Afraid to Set (and Stick With) Your Professional Boundaries

I took a week off work between Christmas and my birthday, the first break I have taken since starting Studio Curative. I notified my clients letting them know I would be taking a break, but as expected, emails and texts still came through during that time. The guilt of not acting on requests right away was real. I debated… “Should I just hop on my laptop and get this done quickly? Maybe I should cut my break short and just get back to work.” By day 5 of my social media break, I was really starting to feel bad. After all, social media never stops, and Social Media Managers are always working…right? The truth is I NEEDED a detox. I needed a break. I wish I could say I stuck to my plan of staying off Instagram the entire time, but I didn’t. I did, however, star my client emails and texts to tackle after my break. This was a boundary I wanted to keep in place for my mental well-being. I replaced the guilt with logic around the need to spend time filling my own cup. This was step one of setting and sticking with my boundaries.

Step two of setting and sticking with my boundaries is more of a work in progress. I am a huge people-pleaser when it comes to business. I want to be available to my clients 24/7, I want to go above and beyond to impress. Looking back on the last year, I went above and beyond a lot and asked for nothing in return. While I believe there is value in thanking your clients by providing discounted or complimentary services here and there, doing it all the time is not a way to run your business and it doesn’t guarantee that your clients will stay with you either. I am learning to say no to requests that are above and beyond my agreements and ultimately cost valuable time and sometimes money. It takes courage to say no sometimes. I don’t want to “bug” my clients about things like scheduling a meeting or reminding them of late payments. But having been presented with new situations over the last few months that reinforced the importance of these things I chose not to “bug” about, I have realized that setting boundaries and clear expectations for myself and my clients is setting a level of respect for me and my business. The right clients who are in alignment with your business and invested in mutual success will value and respect your boundaries, so don’t be afraid to set them and stick with them.

2.     The First 3 Years Aren’t About Making Money

I read this philosophy somewhere (probably on my Instagram feed) and it stuck with me. We are naturally very money-focused as we have bills to pay and some of us have mouths to feed besides our own. We NEED to make money, but we also need to learn our craft, get good at it, learn ourselves as businesswomen and humans in general, make mistakes and learn from them, and explore our craft. The first three years should be mainly about goal setting, becoming visionaries of our dream business and what we can do today to get us 1% closer. We should remain humble, and not greedy in the first three years. Sacrifice is necessary to build a successful business, are you willing to make them today to set yourself up for success in the future? If making money right now is your primary focus, take a step back and look at where you have to improve and grow still. Do your work today with intention and a beginner’s mindset, and the money will follow tomorrow.

3.     Carve Out Time for Learning & Improving Your Craft

I truthfully didn’t start doing this until the latter half of 2024. I was deep in the hustle and panic of not making money (hence my second mindset shift) that every day was dedicated to creating content and trying to land new accounts. Once I was secure with my client base and started to find my workflow, I began participating in regular webinars and doing online courses to learn, improve, and get inspired. I realized the importance of this pretty quickly! Knowledge is power. Knowledge allows us as entrepreneurs to charge more than our competition who dedicates zero time to staying on trends and improving. Knowledge allows us to get creative and excited about our client’s work. Learning more about our craft is the key to not becoming bored, stagnant, or burnt out. It keeps us engaged, interested, curious, and growing. I am now dedicating the first hour of my day to learning something new, whether through a podcast, reading a blog, or doing an online course. I also make it a priority to join one webinar a month at a minimum. Do some digging and see where you can find reliable sources to keep you up-to-date on your craft and get inspired!

4.     Do The Hard Tasks First

I don’t know about you, but I am a huge procrastinator on the tasks I don’t want to do. I am embarrassed to admit that I would write a tedious task on my to-do list on a Monday, but the end of day would come and I would move the task to Tuesday… the end of day Tuesday would come and I would move the task to Wednesday and so on and so on until the absolute last day possible when I would be forced to do it. Not this year! The hard task is getting done first before I move on to the enjoyable tasks. Take these hard tasks one step at a time, simply start the task and work through it. Put on music you enjoy, have some coffee, and slowly work your way through the task. Once it’s done you can sail through the rest of your day!

I am also applying this mindset shift to my tedious monthly tasks. Take expenses for example, very important to track but annoying and time-consuming at the end of the month. Instead of saving all the work for the end of the month and eating up two hours of my day, I am breaking this and other large tasks into smaller, weekly tasks to help manage my time better and stay organized. Maybe doing these tasks more often will even make me dislike them less (please let this be true).

5.     Rest Is Not a Luxury, It’s a Necessity

Something that has always irked me about working in the traditional workforce is having to get permission to take a mental health or self-care day. We ALL need these days. Whether we work a 9-5 or work for ourselves, work is still work and our personal life overlaps sometimes. Whether you need an afternoon, a day, or a week, depriving yourself of that time will only do your business harm. Rest is how we recharge, process, recover, and come back better. Just because you work for yourself and work from home, does not mean you don’t need breaks. I remember I felt very guilty in the beginning stages of my business for taking time for myself. I felt like I had to be in the hustle mindset 24/7 or else I might come across as unmotivated. But I have shed that mindset and will continue to take rest as I need it this year. Taking my week off during the holidays allowed me to recharge and goal set for the year, which made me feel excited and inspired to return to work when my break ended!

6.     Be Unbreakably Confident in Yourself and Your Worth

It’s just a fact of business that not everyone is going to agree that you’re worth what you’re asking for. Rejection is part of business and if you don’t have unwavering confidence in yourself, rejection is a hard pill to swallow. You have to know your worth before anyone else will. You have to be confident in yourself and your skills before anyone else will, and you have to believe in yourself before anyone else will. When hard situations come your way this year (because they inevitably will, no matter how successful your business is) how will you handle them emotionally? Will you let it discourage you and set you back, or will you take it as a learning opportunity and trust in the process that is your entrepreneurial journey? I am going to choose the latter this year.

Wherever you are in your entrepreneurial journey, I encourage you to sit with yourself and think about where you want to be at the end of this year. Your mindset is equally as important as your service offerings. No matter how well your business is doing, challenges will come your way this year and I encourage you to welcome them, as that’s how we grow as entrepreneurs! I encourage you to start by making a small change in your workflow and see how that snowballs into a better workflow for yourself. I encourage you to talk kindly to yourself and be your biggest hype man for yourself!

Cheers to your best year yet!