2023 Recap; 2024 Goals

Welcome to 2024! We may be a few weeks into January but it’s an odd transitional month and I didn’t feel like setting (or sticking) to a hard set date to post this. Especially with a week of a damaging winter storm stalled me finishing this 💀.

I had taken some time at the end of 2023 researching some different blogging platforms to convert my WordPress site to something else. I tested out some Astro templates and their tutorial, but haven't picked out a design to build out yet. Once, I get a design closer in mind and see how to set up my custom domain it, I’ll be posting here!

For the past few years, I have decided on picking a few main goals to focus on for the year. It keeps the process a bit more manageable and specific enough to follow.

As an example below are my 2023 Big Three and results:

1. Keep a consistent form of exercise or movement (hiking, paddling, walking, yoga, eventually running again) for mental health and stress relief.

   Success: but primarily in the last half of the year. The first third, I was feeling the glum effects of seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Once the better weather started peaking out in the spring, I restarted the None to Run plan (way better for beginners than Couch25k!), did a fun run to benefit the Humane Society, took a break for summer, and completed the entire 12 week plan in the fall!

Joined up with some more local group hikes to work on a hike challenge for the year, met some new folks, and new locales.

2. Continue learning in public:

Partial success: I'd post what I was working on and had some in progress projects but had started and stalled quite a few times. My other two goals got a bit in the way; in a good way.

3. On mentality: be kinder to myself, practice meditation more consistently, and improve warding off imposter syndrome

Partial success: This one was a bit tough. I do feel more confident in some of my abilities but have trouble applying them or lack some guidance at times. Comparison is the thief of joy, they say, and is quite true. Working on it! I was able to leverage my fitness goals to help with this thinking a little bit. Not only getting literally outside physically and mentally, but saw a possible difficult hike which was a bit more difficult but doable. Figured as long as you put one foot in front of the other will get you to the top!

Other Notable Tidbits:

Cooking 🍴

I enjoy cooking for myself, trying out new foods, and decided to expand my repertoire of recipes. I picked 10 new-to-me or copycat type recipes to complete once a month. Most turned out okay but there were a few I'll leave to keep ordering from a restaurant. 😅 The full list of recipes are: crunch wrap, ramen, tortellini soup, pop tarts, pad see ewe, monster cake from Breath of the Wild, General Tso’s chicken, gnocchi, eggs benedict, and wonton soup.

Reading 📚

Crushed my Goodreads goal of 12 and reached 41 books for the year ! Joining some in person and online book clubs helped usher this along 😊

Car paid off! #Adulting 🚗

Looking to 2024:

The phrase I kept would tell myself going through 2023, whether it was running training, following a painting tutorial, or hiking, was “trust the process.” What is the process? Not sure! In the moment it was trusting the next steps would get you to your end goal and trust your gut it will work out or you will find a way.

2024’s focus will be around consistency. I’m not quite sure what my Big Three will be this year, or if I even pick any, but I’d like to keep up with my fitness goals, building in public, and learning new things.

That’s it for now, I have a backlog of blogging topics I’d like to cover this year and we’ll see what happens 😎