Heading Into 2024, It's Time to Invest in Myself

I’ve wasted many years wading in the waters of possibility without ever really accomplishing anything I’d hoped to. I was battling several health issues during my time in college and that lead to me feeling sorry for myself and practically pissing away from 20s. I regret that tremendously because I was more ready than I realized to do what I was passionate about. Instead, I avoided completing anything and dabbled in a lot of things that kept me busy, but aimless and stagnant at the same time.

Well it’s time to be honest and hold myself accountable.

Heading into 2024, I’m not going to waste any more time wondering “what could have been”. I have known my passions since I was 18 and they haven’t changed now that I’m in my 30s, so now it’s time to dive-in headfirst and give myself a year to see what I can really do.

I love writing and photography, and since I’m ready to work on those, that’ll be the focus.

Step 1: Prioritize My Passions

I think looking at things in terms of yearlong resolutions has not been beneficial for me. A year is a long time and thinking about the year ahead as a whole is daunting sometimes. I’ve recently found inspiration in focusing on things that bring joy to my life and I’m trying to stop focusing on the things that don’t.

I’ve also known since I was in high school that I thrive when I’m busy and I stall when I have too much free time. So Imma make me a busy bee.

I’ve broken up my weekdays into portions where I can get 30-minute chunks of writing in. One if for script writing and the other is focusing on my book. The weekends I will make it a priority to take photos and carry my camera everywhere with me. I have taken a lot of photos and edited them but I rarely post the photos that I like. Impostor syndrome is a big issue for me in all facets of my life so even if I have to make an anonymous instagram or something, I need to post them more for my personal growth than anything else.

Step 2: Eliminate Distractions

I spent yesterday and today eliminating the distractions and clutter from my daily routine. What does that mean, you ask? Well, I went through Reddit and unfollowed every subreddit that didn’t inspire me or bring happiness. 2 hours. I went through TikTok and unfollowed everyone except for the 9 people that I’d love to meet and work with one day. 1 hour. I also spent 4 hours cleaning out all of my email inboxes. The range of emotions I went through in that time left me exhausted, dehydrated, and almost catatonic. I cannot let my email get that out of control again! I have a problem with deleting things fearing that I’ll delete something important so I looked over every email that wasn’t an obvious solicitation or scam. Even using the brain power to decipher between those was intense.

I also deleted all of the apps on my phone that I don’t use regularly. I recently ran out of storage so most of those apps were offloaded to save space but the icon remained with the option to re-download once there was room. Nice try, Siri. I deleted all of the apps that I didn’t know what they did and if I didn’t realize the app had been off-loaded, I obviously didn’t need it too was shown the door. If any apps were in folders, they survived the day. Apple has not made it easy to mass-delete apps so the folders will have to wait for another day. I also put time limits on everything I waste too much time on so the two games that I play the most have 15 minute limits per day. The social media apps have 30 minutes total (but Instagram and TikTok have their own 15 minute time limits since I get motivation from the people I follow on there).

No more mindless scrolling. It wastes too much time and I’m never ready to do something afterwards. The more time that I spend scrolling on apps, I seem to just lose any and all will to move or accomplish anything.

Step 3: Focus on My Health

I want to travel and be active this year. That means making my health a major focus for the first part of this year. Eating healthy food, working out, and prioritizing sleep is a MUST. To make sure there are no excuses, I have built time for each of those things into my daily schedule and I’m back to wearing my Whoop band so I will be able to look at my heart rate variability to actually see if my body needs a rest day or I’m just being lazy and lawyering myself into being lazy again. Can’t argue with data so if the data shows my body can handle it, then there’s gonna be some clangin’ & bangin’ at the gym.

I’m probably trying to do too much to start off with but I have a lot of progress to make and earning my rest time will make the lazy rest days feel like progress is still being made.

I grew up playing sports and dancing competitively so getting back to playing basketball, ultimate frisbee, and pickleball is important. I also want to start tapping again and take classes (jazz, tap, hip-hop) if I travel to any big cities.

Step 4: Make It Fun

I need to make sure that I try to have fun with the year while packing in as much hard work as I’m doing.

I’ve been making a list of my biggest fears and skills I want to accomplish the most. I’ve taken one from each list and made it a goal for each month to face one of my fears and acquire a new skill. A lot of my friends don’t live near me anymore so I thought it’d be fun to record some of them and send them out to give them a little chuckle (or impress the PANTS off of them!).

I also want to make it a priority to venture outside more and go out at night and go to events more often. The hardest part is leaving the house but I always have fun when I do so let’s focus on the fun and not the burden of putting on shoes with laces and wearing pants with pockets. If a friend invites me to something, why not go? So I’ve made my Friday and Saturday nights free so I can do more spontaneous things.

This year feels like an actual clean slate and I don’t think I’ve ever felt like that going into a new year. I’ve put my goals, fears, and motivations down on paper. They’re real and I laid out in great detail. My goals and motivations made any hesitations or fears from the past seem silly so until something comes along to convince me otherwise, there’s no stopping this train!

Good luck to you all in making 2024 the best year it can possibly be! Make lofty goals and work hard to achieve them. You can do this! We all can!

If you have any goals you want to accomplish this year, leave a comment below! I’d love to know what other people are doing this year.