I have a love/hate relationship with resolutions.
Doesn’t everyone?
It’s similar to how I feel about routines. I understand they can be good good, if done right. But I also struggle to toe the line between structure and suffocation. I go too hard, too fast. I get too restrictive. And then, I blow it all up.
That being said, I value exercises in reflection and goal setting. I find them helpful in keeping myself focused…or, at the very least, in making sure that I am consciously unfocused and not just wandering aimlessly because I have no idea what I could be focusing on.
These rituals have manifested in different ways over the years. Sometimes I set intentions at the beginning of the year, sometimes I do them on my birthday. Sometimes I come up with tangible goals, sometimes I just give myself an overall theme word.
In 2022, I did a full on, day-long reflection and goal setting marathon. Last year, I did nothing. This year, I’m somewhere in between.
I meant to sit down and reflect in December. I didn’t. Instead, my plans for 2024 have come in fits and starts over the last two weeks.
I’ll wake up thinking about something and jot it down.
I’ll sit staring at my tarot deck, not wanting to pull a card because I know what it’s going to tell me and I feel overwhelmed by it, then finally pull a card and it will tell me that I’m overwhelmed.
I’ll write three pages about how I need to sit down and make a plan then my alarm to start work will go off right as I am about to dig in.
I’ll spend an hour brain dumping everything I think will make me a better person into a massive, daunting list and come back later to cull it into something more attainable.
Through all of that, I made what one could potentially consider to be 2024 resolutions:
- Feel better
- Get rich
- Make stuff
Obviously, there is more detail to each of these:
FEEL BETTER
The short and sweet of it is that I have felt like shit for about 2 years now and it’s gotten worse in the last 6ish months. This year, I’d like to figure out how to make it better.
By that I mean physically and mentally.
Here’s the thing…2022 was the unhappiest year of my life and I mostly blame work for that. I could write a whole essay on why I think that is but the tl;dr is that being tied to my desk on hours of Zoom meetings with nobody to actually become in-person besties with did not suite me.
So the way I see it, 2022 broke me and 2023 was my cocoon. When I found myself suddenly much less employed, I was actually pretty jazzed about it. I had been wanting more free time. I figured I would fill it with all the wonderful things I had been daydreaming about. Painting! Photography! Learning a language! Redecorating my house! Coffees with friends!
Instead, I filled all of that empty space with anxiety.
Oh, and depression. My god, the depression! Everything felt like a chore. I knew the things I should do to make myself feel better but I was just so tired. And it felt unfair that I had to do all of this work just to…exist.
So, I didn’t do the things. I spent a lot of time on the couch. I ate whatever I wanted because denying myself the joy of food felt unfair when so few things felt good. I told friends when I didn’t have the energy to socialize (and, importantly, they all understood and supported me…I am so endlessly thankful).
It all added up to a very bad time. I gained a lot of weight. My life-long digestive issues have gone from annoying to full-on burdensome. I get headaches, I feel tired, I feel foggy.
Therapy helps. Exercise helps. Getting out of the house helps. Drinking water helps. Etcetera, etcetera.
BUT, it’s been hard to make a lasting change. And, while I’m fine with the whole, “take it day by day” approach, I would like to put some more intention and structure to the things I am doing to actually get better. Right now, I will have days where I feel pretty ok but it’s like I am floating just under the surface of the water and can’t break it. Or, I’ll just wake up and feel like the light has been sucked out of me. Or, I’ll get a stomach ache, seemingly out of nowhere, and have to cancel plans at the last minute.
The thing that bugs me most is I don’t know why these things happen when they do. All I have is reactivity. “How am I feeling right now? What do I do to counterbalance that?” I would like to be able to more proactively influence my state of being in a positive way.
So that is my MAIN FOCUS this year. My health. Everything else is going to have to be secondary because everything else suffers anyway if I feel like shit all the time. I’ll save the “how” of it all for another post otherwise this one will be unbearably long (…more so than it already is).
GET RICH
I have not had a full-time job since March 17th, 2023.
That was a choice I made. I am (thankfully) not one of the many, many, many people who have been applying to jobs for months to no avail. I was let go from my last full-time position and decided to just…chill that way.
I had a job though. I was working on the side for Women Talk Design and Danielle was able to bring me on for more hours pretty much as soon as I was fired. And then, a couple months later, I got another contract. So I have been paying my bills.
And I haven’t done much other than coast on the opportunities that fell in my lap because for months, I simply could not.
Just like I talked about above, I did not feel good. I set goals and then let them slide. I felt shitty and unproductive and then told myself it was ok to not be productive for a while. I put away all of my motivational books (lookin at you, Atomic Habits), and instead read about how to disengage and reset and rest and escape.
There was kind of a glaring problem though: I had become accustomed to a high-paid lifestyle. Not like, “Here, look at my new Birken bag” high-paid. More like, “I don’t have to look at the prices of things in the grocery store and if I want to randomly drop $500 on stuff I don’t need, I know there will be more money in a week” kind of high-paid. And, while I was so so lucky to have them, two part-time contracts do not a six-figure salary make.
I was able to tame my spending to a degree. But, when faced with the choice, I would prefer to figure out how to make more money vs. work on cutting my expenses. (I don’t like to tell myself no, remember?)
The good news is that I am finally feeling excited to do things again. Remember what I said about every little thing feeling like a chore? And, feeling like it was unfair that I have to work so hard? Well, I can’t pinpoint exactly when the switch happened but lately I have been excited to set goals and work on things again. It feels more like I get to do things than I have to do things. So I’m running with that.
This year, I’m launching my business.
(Technically, I launched in June when I signed my second clients but…be cool.)
For a while, I have wanted to see what I can do on my own and no I finally feel like I have the strength to climb higher.
My business will support my other financial goals, like getting my savings back on track (I haven’t contributed in 9 months) and being able to afford my whims again.
Once again, more on that later. So, so much more.
MAKE STUFF
And for my last trick, something I’ve been saying I’ll do for years.
I love photography. And, I have to twist my own arm to actually make photos.
While I am going to try to strike a balance in my business between following the dollar signs and doing things that align with my values, I’m also setting goals that are dedicated to sparking a fire. I want to find the magic again, baby.
Making things will support my other two goals too. I want to make more of my own food to feel better. I want to make more work that excites me so I can attract more work that excites me.
This extends beyond all of that though. It encompasses building this blog and getting my house to feel more homey and creating a garden and sewing my own clothes and sitting down with my mom to make a family history.
I have always felt like I have something to say but I have shied away from saying anything because I felt like I’d do it in a sloppy way. I have wanted to try new things but I have been terrified of being a beginner
But the only way over all of that is through is.
Make stuff.
….
That’s it…that’s my year. My plan is to write things here more consistently (weekly?), mostly for myself (because who is reading this?). But I am going for better, not perfect, so who knows what that will actually end up looking like.
See ya when I see ya.