New year, new me?

I love making New Year’s resolutions because it seems valuable to have aspirations heading into a new year. While I often fail to achieve them, the journey and progress made still feels meaningful (although I will admit I have made little progress in getting 6-pack abs…but maybe this year). As I was reflecting on 2023 and reviewing my resolutions from last year, I’m embarrassed to say that I forgot about a lot of them. Which says that I either made too many resolutions, or never had a plan on how I was going to achieve them in the first place.

Therefore, my first 2024 resolution is to review my goals on a weekly basis, so I can at least track my progress and adjust accordingly. Some of my 2023 resolution are carrying over to this year:

• Write weekly, and set up an e-mail newsletter
• Work out consistently (3x/week)
• Figure out a financial plan/budget

In short, be more disciplined, which is something I’ve always struggled with.

There are also some new goals for 2024:

• Play piano weekly. I bought a piano during covid and thought I’d play more, but unfortunately I’ve let it slide by the wayside last year.
• Travel more…which is funny because I traveled a fair amount in 2023: Taiwan, LA (x3), Hawaii, Chicago, Paris, Zion/Bryce. Seeing as I’m maxed out on vacation days, this shouldn’t be too hard.
• Try to avoid heated political arguments. In my effort to engage more in political discussions and have deeper conversations with friends, I may have overshot and got into more heated arguments than I wanted to last year. There were also several productive conversations, but I need to be more discerning about when to speak up, what to say, and who to engage with.

As I’m sharing this on my blog there is some fear that I will fail my goals publicly — for example, I’m already late on my 2nd blog post of the year. I’m learning, though, to give myself grace, brush it off, and press onwards.

What are your new year’s resolutions?