Three in 10 Americans reported doing at least one RESOLUTION this year, and half of those surveyed engaged in more than one, according to a Pew Research Center study. Goals all around health and wealth were some of the most popular.

The new year can be a natural time to set goals about yours BUsINEsscareer or finances. If you have one in mind reinvention for 2025, you might be wondering how to make it stick. Or maybe you're still trying to figure out what exactly you want to change.

Related: Spring into action with these 11 books about reinvention

Suzy Welch, an award-winning professor at NYU's Stern School of Business, may be able to help. Her popular course “Becoming You: Create the Authentic Life You Want and Need” explores the idea that people can build a rewarding and successful career around their purpose – and embraces the fact that many don't know what purposeor “zone of transcendence,” is.

^{Image credit: Vincent Tullo. Suzy Welch.}

“The basic premise is that (purpose) lies in your intersection authentic values; your true values; your skills, which is what you are uniquely good at both cognitively and emotionally; and what you care about will pay you according to your value for money,” explains Welch.

“Part of discovering our values ​​is facing the fact that we can't always have it all.”

Identifying personal values ​​is at the heart of Welch's course. When she first started teaching Becoming You, she realized that students struggled to define what their personal values ​​were, often confusing them with virtues. Many had a vague feeling that financial security and family were important to them, but they had a hard time digging much deeper, Welch recalls.

So Welch started doing research. She conducted a study based on people aged 21-45 with at least two years of university education; she asked them what value was and only 17% could come up with a definition. Moreover, of that 17%, only 7% could identify their values ​​with specificity.

Sometimes conflicting values ​​contribute to insecurity, Welch says, noting that “part of discovering our values ​​is coming face to face with the fact that we can't always have it all.” It uses the desire for a very high level of weal and fun, referred to as “eudaimonia” in the course, as an example: Excluding inherited wealth, these two drivers are not necessarily more compatible.

Related: 4 steps to living abundantly, attracting wealth and a better business

Welch recalls one student who had to have an honest conversation with himself about how much money it really mattered to him. As it turns out, he had been untruthful to himself and everyone else, but he was finally able to admit that money is an important driver for him. Your personal values ​​are just that — yours — and you don't have to apologize for them if they're not hurting anyone, Welch says.

Welch put on his “entrepreneur's hat” and developed a values ​​test called the Values ​​Bridge to help people determine their values. By answering 100 questions, participants can discover their top values, bottom values, and which values ​​conflict with each other. A recently completed six-factor analysis is finding the results to be “very accurate,” Welch says.

“There are eight big cognitive skills, and (a test can) save you years of doing the wrong kind of work.”

People who want to unlock more filled with purpose life (and earn an income that supports it) should also consider their skills. This, too, can be difficult for many people who are unclear about where their talents lie or who have been misinformed.

“The first place we discover our abilities is from ourselves the parentswho don't always have the clearest understanding of them,” says Welch, “and then the school tells us. And it may or may not be true about what we're good at, what the school tells us, because it depends a lot on the teacher and how these things are taught and so on.”

Over the course of their lives, most people will repeatedly figure out what they're good for — but they may be 40 years old by the time they come to a well-informed conclusion, according to Welch.

Fortunately, some shortcuts can speed up the process: as with determining personal values, testing is effective. Welch has her students take an online skills assessment to pinpoint their skills. “Are you a general practitioner, are you a specialist, are you a diagnostician problem-solving or a process supporter? There are eight big cognitive skills, and (a test) can save you years of doing the wrong kind of work or not dividing the work properly if you're an entrepreneur,” Welch explains.

Related: These 5 skills are critical to success and career advancement

There's another easy way for someone to figure out what they're good at: ask those around them. Most people never experience that level reaction unless they're in a corporate environment with 360 reviews—and even then, the process can be a shock, Welch says.

“When I first did it, I was sent to a leadership program when I had been promoted to a leadership position,” Welch recalls, “and the guy next to me took the 360 ​​and he looked at it and said, 'Oh, you gave me feedback on wrong person'. And they were like, 'No.'

Welch also created a tool called PI 360 – an easy and inexpensive way for people to get feedback.

“If you find what you're really, really good at, you're more likely to make money there faster.”

Of course, there is also a case when people I DO know what their abilities are – but you don't necessarily want to admit them. The conflict often arises with aspiring entrepreneurs who want to start and grow their businessesbut they may not have the skills they need to be successful, Welch says.

“You may not have all the things it takes,” explains Welch, “the ability to write losses, nerves of steel, resilience. The skills and actions required of entrepreneurs are different from all others. You may be in love with the romance of entrepreneurshipbut not actually be fully charged for it. And this is very important to find out.”

Once you're comfortable with your values ​​and abilities, there's another critical factor to consider: areas of economic opportunity.

Related: Top 10 fastest growing industries in 2024

Research shows that when students graduate from high school, they are able to name five jobs, usually including what their parents did and “teacher,” Welch says. Then the college introduces another “conveyor belt”, where it seems that everyone is entering consultationbanking or technological, etc.

“There are 135 industries,” Welch says, “and that's not even including the industries you can create as an entrepreneur. It's as simple as Googling what industries are out there and reading all 135 because the government publishes the all industries. and how fast they're growing if you're looking for a fast-growing industry that interests you, it's literally a few clicks away.

Of course, before you identify an industry, you need to understand how much money you really care about. whether profit potential is not your primary motivation, it opens up more possibilities.

“The irony of course is that if you find what you're really, really good at, you're more likely to earn money there's more to it than just jumping into a fast-growing, high-paying industry,” Welch says. “So it's a very dynamic process.”

“Every reinvention (comes with) so many bumps, difficulties, false starts and challenges.”

Although the approach of 2025 can inspire self-reflection and reinvention, there is no magical time of year that is better for change than another. After all, research shows that only 9% of Americans who make a New Year's resolution will keep it — and 43% of those won't even make it past January.

This is why it is essential to have FAITH on the changes you want to make—and get to know where your values, inclinations, and economic opportunities intersect.

Related: 10 things you can do to increase your self-confidence

“It's going to go bad before it goes good,” Welch says. “Every reinvention (comes with) so many hits, struggles, false starts and challenges, and if you don't have faith that it's right pivotyou will release it the moment it gets hot. Whether you're doing it in January or any other time of year, you have to approach it with a fully informed mindset.”