By Laura Hampton
For many of us, the new year offers a chance to reflect on our achievements and consider where we want to go next.
And it’s no surprise that, in a sport as fast-paced and adrenaline fuelled as skydiving, many of our goals relate to PROGRESSION. What can I achieve next? What cool skills can I learn? What stickers can I add to my book?
The aim of this article is to help shape your skydiving progression in 2025 and should act as a useful resource whether you’re just starting out or you’re a seasoned pro.
Where are you now… and what is your next step?
If we think short term for a moment, it can be useful to consider where you are now in your skydiving career as this can inform where is appropriate to go next.
Still on student status? While having big goals is no problem, understanding that some of the skills you chase might require you to have been in the sport for a couple of years. It might help you set your expectations in terms of what you can realistically achieve in 2025.
Equally, if you’re already in a place where your licence book is brimming over with stickers, perhaps this year represents an opportunity to dive deeper into one of your many skills and become a master.
You can start setting your 2025 goals by looking at where you are now. Here are a few tips to help with that…
Student skydivers
Your first aim should, and in fact must, be achieving your A licence. This is the licence you’ll need to do anything else in skydiving — so focusing your attention there will mean you can ensure you get to the next steps.
Remember, skydiving isn’t something you can dip in and out of. To stay safe and improve your skills, you’ll want to stay current, meaning your plan for 2025 should include plenty of days at the DZ.
A-C licence skydivers
The first sticker you’ll want to achieve is your FS1 — Formation Skydiving 1. I actually dislike that it’s called this, as the skills you learn aren’t solely for formation skydiving; they’re really about controlling your body and staying safe when sharing the sky with others. It’s an essential skill that forms the foundation for everything that follows.
Other stickers are of course available, but my best advice, especially for those under 200 jumps, is to look out for opportunities to progress in FS first. FS1+ is a great next goal, so too are beginner bigway camps, intermediate events and, eventually, the more advanced, cool stuff like multiplane jumps or record attempts. All of which only become available to those people who hone their skills before moving on to the next discipline.
C licence and above
For those with 200 jumps or more, the opportunity to hone your FS skills is still a valuable one, meaning you’ll be much better equipped to target those next disciplines. Tracking tends to be popular because it’s something that is very accessible to newer participants in particular — if you don’t manage to keep up on a tracking dive, it doesn’t really matter (as long as you’re safe) whereas failure to dock on your FS group can feel like you’re letting the group down (you’re not, but I do get it).
Freeflying is also a lot of fun and a great way to learn to fly on different axes. Then you’ve got CF, WS, CP… There are so many things to learn! Just remember to get a good coach and take the necessary time to learn in a safe way.
Thinking further ahead; what are your long term goals?
Hopefully, the majority of people reading this are in skydiving for the long term, and that means having goals that extend beyond 2025, too!
As someone who has been skydiving for 17 years (!) and has spent the majority of that time on my belly, I can safely say I know the sense of reward and accomplishment you get when you make long term plans and focus on mastery of your skill. One of my proudest life achievements so far is the time I spent in Chimera and the medals we won along the way are testament to the hard work and dedication we put in. If competition feels like it could be for you, I’d highly recommend it.
Of course, competition isn’t for everyone, and there are other ways to develop in our sport. Becoming a more active contributor to the community can be really rewarding and by building up your skills, you could become an event organiser, load organising groups, coaching people or even making your skydiving hobby into a job.
Perhaps you might be more driven by travel. Fancy going on that skydiving holiday in that exciting new country? That’s great… but registration might require you to show you’ve got certain skills or a certain level of experience first.
Setting goals that you can stick to
Having goals is one thing… but can you stick to them? If you’re anything like me, you’ve started the year with the best intentions, but unless we have a clear plan and can hold ourselves accountable, it can be tricky to achieve your goals.
My friend told me at the end of 2024 that he had written down all of his goals at the start of the year and kept them pinned on a notice board so he could remind himself each day. That’s a great way to stay focused and provides a little motivation along the way, too.
For me, I tend to be more list driven and, because I’m often travelling around, I find it easier to keep my goals listed in an online format using a spreadsheet (I know, what a nerd! Way to take the fun out of skydiving, eh?!).
But seriously, having your goals listed out can be really helpful. Here are my tips for successful goal planning in 2025:
- Make a list, starting at the top level. What do you ultimately want to achieve? It could be something like ‘get my FF1’ or ‘become a better FS flyer’
- Go a bit deeper. What are the steps required to achieve that goal? Maybe note them down as ‘sub-goals’ below your main ones. For example: ‘get my FF1’ could have a sub-goal of ‘sign up for a coaching weekend’ or ‘become a better FS flyer’ would be ‘attend 5 bigway FS events this year’
- Give yourself a timeline. It’s super difficult if you leave your goals to the very end of the year because, firstly, you run out of time and, secondly, it’s hard to motivate yourself when you know your goal is unlikely to happen as you left it until the last minute. Make your goals more tangible by writing something like ‘attend 5 bigway FS events by July 2025’ and that can help to shape your plans
- Hold yourself accountable… but be fair. Track the progress you’re making against your goals but also be fair to yourself if there are things like weather, finance, personal challenges, work stuff or anything else that gets in the way. It’s OK not to achieve all of your goals, just try again next year!
Above all else, remember that skydiving isn’t just about what tangible goals we can achieve, but what an amazing journey we can have along the way. As someone who’s been in it for a while, I encourage you all in 2025: be kind to yourself, be kind to others and enjoy every moment in the sky and on the ground. It’s going to be a great year. Good luck!
