Last week, I shared my goals for next year. Now it’s time to look back on my goals from this year. This is always a great opportunity to see where I succeeded and where some improvement would be nice, and it gets me in the right mood to start early on next year’s goals. Without further ado, let’s see how I did with my 2024 goals.
- Heal as much of my remaining pain as possible. Since my dog Sawyer died on April 19th, 2022, most of my attention has been on healing from the excruciating pain that that caused me. While I haven’t healed it all, I’ve managed to heal most of it over the remainder of 2022 and everything thus far of 2023. That has allowed me to recover some of the courage I had during the high times in 2021 and do things I could never have done while I was still drowning in sorrow. It’s also cleared the way for me to focus on some of the deeper pains that have been with me since I was a little kid. I’m certain that healing that original pain will be the most freeing experience of my life and let me step into the man I’ve always wanted to be.
This was a mixed bag. Regarding Sawyer’s death, I’m at the point now that I hardly ever feel excessively sad or otherwise upset. That’s a remarkable place to be considering how deep and ever-present the pain was for well over a year. In other areas, it’s harder to say. I still often feel uncomfortable around other humans, especially when I dislike how things are going and wish to change them. It’s still hard to speak up in those situations due to the fear of being punished for voicing my concerns and possibly even losing a relationship with someone I care about. There is still also fear around both success and failure: that I will lose what I have left and that I will reach a new level of accomplishment in life that will demand very different things than what I currently do. Recent events, especially a gig this past weekend, have restored a lot of my confidence and courage. I plan to use that lovely boost and the progress I made this year to start 2025 off on the right foot. - Improve my finances. It’s been a long time since my financial situation has been as strained as it is now. Fortunately, I’m in good shape for this month and at least the early part of next year. All the healing work I’ve done and the boundaries I’ve set since late 2021 have put me in a position to greatly expand my financial opportunities in 2024. At least some of this will include moving forward on a few projects that I had intended to start this year but never did. I also plan to contribute more money toward investing, which is something I began doing this past January. I look forward to recovering financially from the major drains of the last few years and getting back to the stable place I was in for most of the past decade.
Also mixed results here. Despite a seemingly endless flood of financial challenges, my financial situation survived the year. It was often quite a stretch, and I had to borrow or straight up ask for money from those close to me on several occasions. My food delivery gig kept me afloat each month, performing gigs sometimes saved the day, and various small projects (yard work, painting, taking a friend’s kid home from school, etc.) gave me an occasional boost. I got my first credit card a few months ago and have been staying on top of the payments every month while avoiding overspending so that I don’t get into hot water. That credit card has made my financial situation better and easier in many ways, in addition to (I hope) giving me a good credit score. I even succeeded at investing more money every month than I did in 2023! That’s a huge win. The new job I started this month and the holiday gigs (one of which has already happened and several of which are happening soon) are bringing this year to a fairly soft landing, financially speaking. I hope that next year’s landing, as well as the journey, will be much softer and smoother. - Be more present. Although being in the present moment was a big part of my early self-improvement journey, that has largely fallen by the wayside over the past few years. In that time, I’ve become much more absentminded, easily distracted, and likely to miss precious moments due to a lack of sufficient attention to the now. This also makes me feel frustrated and anxious more easily, in addition to making me more inclined to follow someone else’s lead in an interaction instead of staying true to myself. I hope that practicing presence will mitigate all of those negative effects and bring back some peace that has been sorely missing from my life.
Three mixed bags in a row? Yep. There were long stretches of this year in which I was less present than in previous years. It’s hard to stay focused on the moment when I hate how the moment is going, which was the case for me during much of 2024. However, I managed to start being more present toward the end of the year as things got better. Being away from my phone for longer periods of time on certain occasions also made it easier to be present. Whenever I was fairly present, it always struck me how many others weren’t. Just as it’s hard to notice that others are wet while I’m swimming, so too is it hard to notice the lack of presence in others while I’m similarly lost in thought. Spending more time by myself and around those who can be more present than the average individual made it easier to be present than when I got almost no alone time or had to be around a lot of people who are almost never present. I did ok at being present this year and I hope to do even better next year.