If you were anywhere on social media this fall, you’ll probably remember getting a flood of posts about the Great Lock In of 2025.
The challenge, which encouraged people to “lock in” and commit to achieving new goals from September through the end of December, led thousands of Instagram and TikTok users to post their own self improvement commitments online, from losing weight to saving money to crushing it at work.
Like the “winter arc,” “75 hard” and “75 soft” challenges that came before it, many users said The Great Lock In provided a motivational push to reach focused goals in a shortened window of time, in a way where New Year’s resolutions fall short.
Now, just about 120 days later, here’s how four women made good on their year-end aspirations.
A morning power hour
In L.A., 37-year-old Kristal Rominiyi says her improved morning routine has made the biggest difference.
Rominiyi, a travel advisor, decided in September she could use an extra hour every morning to herself and spent about a week moving her wakeup time to 6:15 a.m.
As she sees it, “[How] you spend the first hour of your day sets the tone for the day. Do you wake up? Do you work out? Do you meditate, pray, eat a hearty breakfast? Or do you snooze?”
During her morning power hour, Rominiyi says she goes on a walk for at least 3 miles, or around 7,000 steps toward her 10,000 daily step count, then returns home to have a protein-rich breakfast before starting her workday.
Her quiet morning affords her a “peace and quiet where you can get things done without your phone ringing, without people asking you questions,” she says. Plus, an earlier start means “I’ve already checked off two main things off of my to do list before 8 a.m.,” which energizes her to tackle her workday and personal to-dos as a mom to a teenage son.
Saving thousands on skin care using AI
The Great Lock In challenge prompted Janey Park to save money on her beauty routine.
Park, 42, is the founder of a digital media brand in Washington, D.C. After spending 15 years in the beauty space, Park says she stopped thinking twice about dropping thousands of dollars on her luxury beauty regimen.
Janey Park used ChatGPT to swap her $2,800 beauty routine to a $200 lineup.
Courtesy of subject
The social media challenge prompted her to try something new, Park says: She used ChatGPT to plug in each product she used and prompted it to find find cheaper alternatives, often from Korean beauty lines, based on her skin-care needs and goals.
As a result, she swapped her $2,800 routine of SK-II, La Mer and La Prairie to a new beauty lineup that costs just about $200 with products from Anua, Numbuzin, Biodance and the like.
Park says her winning ChatGPT prompt included four main components, including:
Context, as in your skin type, lifestyle and environmentSpecifics around your goals, preferences and budgetAssigning ChatGPT the role of a skin-care expertAnd thinking about what format you want the information in, like a structured comparison or ingredient breakdown
“Honestly, I think my skin looks better at 42 than it has ever in my life,” she says, adding that she now funnels the money saved from her skin-care swap to invest in stocks and crypto.
Leveling up at work and the gym
Deidre Henry, 39, has done her own version of a “winter arc” for the last three years and was inspired by The Great Lock In to set new goals in the fall.
The New York City-based tech founder focused on setting goals in two areas of her life: her career and her health.
For work, she committed to posting on LinkedIn three times a week, Instagram twice a week and TikTok twice a day while keeping Instagram Threads as her leisure platform.
By day 60, Henry says she hit her stride. She says her consistent posting on LinkedIn led her to bring on four new clients, two speaking engagements and her first major brand deal.
Deidre Henry says posting consistently on LinkedIn helped her land new clients, speaking engagements and a brand deal.
Courtesy of subject
Henry also set a weekly gym schedule to work out every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday before 9 a.m. The routine gave her structure and made her practice setting boundaries. If someone wanted to schedule a morning work meeting or friends wanted to plan a Saturday breakfast, Henry learned to decline or propose alternatives to protect her gym time.
Henry says the shorter time frame of The Great Lock In and similar social media challenges make her set more achievable goals, rather than having a year-long resolution that can be put off each month. It also makes it easier to track weekly progress.
“That just gave me this unexplainable amount of motivation and validation of what I am doing locking in,” Henry says.
A bedtime routine to look forward to
Bella Jones, 44, in New York, publicly committed to getting more rest. It sounds easy enough, and yet only 42% of Americans say they get enough sleep, according to Gallup.
Jones, the owner of a personal finance company and business consultancy, says she’s spent years logging just four to five hours per night due to a demanding career in corporate finance.
Slow progress is still progress.
Beginning in September, she began moving her bedtime from midnight to around 10 p.m. and established a routine to help her wind down, which includes drinking tea, reading a book and using a heated eye massager before bed.
The new habit makes getting ready for bed “more enjoyable” and something to look forward to, she says.
She’s also cut down on doom scrolling before bed—but doesn’t deny herself completely. (She now limits it to two nights per week.)
Jones says her new ritual wasn’t a “flip of the switch,” and she still struggles to wind down on time during busy work periods. But she doesn’t let a bad night derail her for the next. “Be gentle with yourself,” she says. “It’s not all or nothing. Slow progress is still progress.”
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