5 Things I’ll Be Doing Differently In 2024
And how they’re going to better help me reach my most important goals
This year was one to remember.
Maybe that’s every year, but if you’re anything like me, this year rocked your world.
2023 was a year of growing up for me. A time to live and a time to die in so many ways, with some hard lessons along the way.
There’s many things I’ll be continuing — habits and routines I’ll be sure to keep up. However, for every few of those, there are some things that I’m looking to do different next year.
So far, here are the five things I’ve decided I’m doing differently in 2024:
#1: Have more realistic expectations
Sometime halfway through the month of October of this year, I had a realization. I was flipping through my planner and looked down at the numerous goals I’d set for the month. (I’m not sure how many it was exactly, but it was definitely too many.)
I realized that halfway through the month I had achieved none of them, and was only nominally making progress on a couple of them. They didn’t inspire or excite me, and they sure didn’t motivate me to any meaningful actions.
I took a pen and scratched through the list, writing something simple beneath it for me to reference anytime I saw the scribbled out list:
Get some better goals.
I’m going to be honest, they were the opposite of SMART goals — they were dumb goals, whatever that stands for.
In 2024, I’m going to set more realistic expectations. I’m going to prioritize progress over perfection, remember that forward is a pace, and focus on the next right thing rather than the biggest thing I could do at any given moment.
Life’s too short to have goals that won’t actually push you to achieve anything meaningful. Get some better goals.
#2: Avoid making everything a side hustle
Not everything you love has to be a side hustle.
In his book 4,000 Weeks, author Oliver Burkeman talks a lot about this, and how we’ve made every hobby under the sun a side hustle of some sort, and we’re applauded for this behavior.
Some things are worth doing for the sake of doing them, and life is about more than just making money.
“In an age of instrumentalization, the hobbyist is a subversive: he insists that some things are worth doing for themselves alone, despite offering no payoffs in terms of productivity or profit. The derision we heap […] might really be a kind of defense mechanism, to spare us from confronting the possibility that they’re truly happy in a way that the rest of us — pursuing our telic lives, ceaselessly in search of future fulfillment — are not.”― Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
In 2024, I’m going to do things because I love them, not because they bring in the dough. And even if they do, I’m still going to try and do them out of love for the act rather than dependency on a monetary reward.
In 2024, I’m going to remember that I’d rather live my life than spend all of my time managing some bigger and better business I’ve fashioned out of something I used to love.
#3: Turn more things down
I said yes to a lot of things in 2023. My therapist tells me I have something, something serious…
Sign up sheet addiction.
Those were actually my words, but she said they were very practical and effective at communicating my problem. When I see something I could sign up to do, I want it.
In 2023 I decided to be a soldier, a therapist, a writer, a parent, a wife, a leader for a lot of clubs I don’t care that much about, a helper for something I didn’t even understand for myself in the first, and an employee at an organization I really don’t want to work for.
I confuse availability with opportunity, assuming that something’s for me just because a vacancy shows up for something within my line of sight. It’s become an occupational hazard of being a social butterfly and people pleaser, and I’ve realized that it’s time to stop.
In 2024, I’m going to have stricter standards for what I say yes to. I want to be able to give a firm answer to myself about what’s important to me and what isn’t.
#4: Focus on quarter goals
Who has the attention span to keep up with a year?
Certainly not me. In 2024, I’m going to focus a lot more on quarter goals. In my 2024 bullet journal, I purposely hid my annual goals at the back of the journal, leaving open spaces for quarterly goals at the beginning of each 3-month segment of the year.
This has already helped me to see my goals in more bite-sized and manageable chunks, rather than lofty goals I have no idea of how to achieve.
The focus on smaller goals helps to better direct action, and can allow for further splitting up goals into month and weekly goals, as well as habits for every day that feed into those goals.
#5: Limit my relationship with my phone
I hate myself often for the relationship I have with my phone.
The iPhone induced self-loathing probably isn’t healthy, but it’s certainly indicative of some things.
There’s a line in Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus’ film The Minimalists that has stuck with me ever since I first watched the documentary.
“Love people, and use things, because the opposite never works.”
In the middle of the hectic digital age, I sometimes wonder if I’ve fallen prey to the exact thing they’re heeding against. Do I love a thing and use that thing to use other people?
I have to say, sometimes I think I’m guilty of that.
I think that I’ve become the person obsessed with her tech, taking advantage of people in different ways through the different social platforms I utilize. I don’t want to be that way.
In 2024, I plan to have many more boundaries set with my phone, both with notifications and the actual set up of the device I so often keep in my pocket. I’ll share more details about this boundary-setting with my phone in another piece down the road.
For now, know that I’m looking to make some serious changes.
I think 2024 is our year. I’ve just got a good feeling about it. And with some ideas of what works and what doesn’t, why can’t this be the best year yet?
Best of luck and thanks for reading from me this year. I hope to see you again in 2024.
