Happy New Year! Happy 2024. I am so looking forward to this new year and all the exciting things its going to be bringing. If you want 2024 to be different from 2023, set goals for yourself and implement a plan to get there. Change is good, it helps us grow and evolve. Resolutions are all about reinventing yourself which is just improving and upgrading yourself. I do not want to be the exact same person I was 5 years ago. Don't make your goals too big, break them up into smaller steps to make it easier to achieve. Here are some questions to ask yourself when creating your goals:
What characteristics does the best version of myself have?
What routine does the best version of myself follow?
What activities does the best version of myself often do?
Did you know that people who write down their goals are 20% more successful in accomplishing them than those who don't? If you want to reinvent yourself you can 100% do it!
There's a different way you could also do your resolutions. Instead of doing big new years resolutions for the whole year, you can have a new years resolution for each month so it doesn't feel super overwhelming at the beginning of the year trying to accomplish a bunch of goals at once. So for instance you can do a No Buy January (no coffee out, no new clothes, no takeout, no new makeup unless its empty, no new candles (you bought plenty of Christmas candles), use canned goods before buying more, bring lunch to work). I do Dry January every year and some people do veganuary. Think of it as a 2024 reset guide to rethink ways to reach your goals with a different approach. Get in your hot girl walks while listening to podcasts, try new hobbies, take your magnesium and do yoga before bed.
My closet is so full I've run out of hangers and I'm not buying any more. I want to purge and declutter and that's my number one goal. I want to make 2024 the year of organization and cleanliness.
1. Buy Less: I have so many clothes and less opportunity to wear it since I work from home. Dare I call myself a clothes hoarder? lol I want to declutter my closet ruthlessly to have more space and clarity and not be overwhelmed by so many options. I want to streamline my sense of style and embrace slow fashion. The goal in slow fashion is to wear something 30 times. Since I’ve been using the Stylebook app for 14 years now, my whole closet is in the app and it tracks how often I wear something. My next post will have more information on the 30 Wear Challenge.
Zappos recycles denim and will send you a free label so you can ship your old jeans to them! Zappos will recycle your old shoes or donate them to people in need.
2. Finish my photobooks for my vacations last year by end of January. See I make 100 page, thin, photobooks from all my vacations. I feel this is the best way to preserve photos for years to come as you won't find it on your phone. Making the photo book is fast but the hardest part is uploading all the photos and you need to use high res images, so photos edited in an app won't work.
3. Read one book each month. Last year I only read 8 books. I have a bunch of books on audiobooks.com already downloaded and waiting for me that I need to listen to. My goal is to read 5 pages daily and read Atomic Habits which has been sitting on my nightstand for a year now.
4. Video creation
Video creation has always been in my creative juices long before we got smartphones. On instagram I love documenting my travel on insta stories saved to my highlight tabs. Tiktok has challenged me to talk on camera more but I want to learn how to do all those fun transitions with Capcut. I love creating content and stretching myself to learn more skills. I am also taking the lead on a video project at work.
5. Declutter
I will reset and declutter once a week. I'm going to create structure by making daily to do lists and tasks for the whole month. When I get to check of tasks it helps me to feel in control. I want to have a well-organized home that brings peace of mind. I think a tidy space feels so good and refreshes both your space and mind. I'm naturally a messy person, so I've read both of Marie Kondo's books on decluttering but still need help keeping consistent with it as it's a habit you need to nurture. I would like my home to be light and airy, comfortable and welcoming, and most importantly not overflowing. I want to be able to find what I'm looking for and have my home always be company ready. I think this will help me live a calmer more productive life. Clutter is literally bad for your health, research says it stresses you out.
6. Advance Player mode with points and miles
2024 is the year that I travel for free on points. I've been to over 80 countries and my goal is to go more places while spending less money. I've had a few trips in the past where I traveled on points. 14 years ago I went to Hawaii for Christmas with my mom and that whole trip was on points but it took me 5 years to earn those points since I travel very little for work. But I've been learning more about travel rewards and earned so many points during the pandemic so I will be traveling smarter this year. I'm excited about flying business class internationally with some points I cashed in! I only get to do that once a decade and I’m due now!
The reason we get a high when we travel is because when you're on vacation you feel the positive energy of that place and then you feel the lack of energy at home, and thus you get addicted to traveling to get that energy again.
7. Morning Sunlight
I listened to the Huberman Lab podcast and here is what Dr. Andrew Huberman said about sunlight:
"Light viewing in the morning is the most powerful stimulus for wakefulness throughout the day and it has a powerful positive impactful ability for you to fall and stay asleep at night."
His instructions are to go outside first thing in the morning and face the sun for 5 minutes on a sunny day or 10 minutes on a cloudy day. You're not supposed to look directly into the sun nor wear sunglasses. He said this will help you feel more awake during the day. This can't be done indoors through artificial light or a window.
8. Digital declutter
I don’t watch regular TV, I watch the real housewives on Peacock and then Youtube every night. I cancelled Hulu and only kept Netflix so I don’t have to buy expensive comedy show tickets as they all end up on Netflix within a year. On Youtube videos there’s a button to click watch later, which means it ends up in a watch later playlist. I currently have 700 videos in the playlist and it takes forever to scroll to the end! lol And then I have 108,000 photos on my phone to sort through, I have an insane amount of screenshots.
9. Drink green smoothies on a regular basis. I really fell off in 2023 and hardly ever made one when in previous years I drank them weekly. This helps me to eat more fruit. My freezer is full of frozen fruit! Here are my favorite three smoothies: tropical mango, glowing green, matcha.
10. Panty clean out
Use all the canned foods in my pantry before I buy more. Last January I put a sticker under every spice container so I would know what to throw away in a year. I heard a chef say that dry spices lose their freshness after a year, especially cardamom, cinnamon, oregano and rosemary.
11. Try a new restaurant
Since 2020 I've eaten out way less in my city and there's so many new restaurants opening, I want to try out some new spots. I used to be an avid Yelper because I had so many places to review!
12. Ear Styling
I want to start wearing ear cuffs and jacket earrings. I've bought a few but never worn them. I think they look so cool so I'm writing it down so I remember to do it!
13. Go to concerts. I live close to an arena and had never been to a concert there until Madonna came. Last summer I learned about this trick that if you go on ticket apps the day of a concert, the price goes down every hour. I got to sit in section 102 for the Madonna concert for a fraction of the price! In 2024 coming to town is Burna Boy, Nicki Minaj, Marc Anthony and Bad Bunny. Did you know you can go on sportify and someone will have made a set list for each concert tour so you can determine if you know enough songs to make it worth it to go.
14. Weekly Yoga Practice
Since the start of the pandemic I stopped going to yoga studios and lost my regular practice. I want to commit to a Sunday yoga practice on the Peloton app for just 20-30 minutes. Yoga improves your strength, balance and flexibility. For me the most measurable benefit is that it helps with back pain relief.
Related posts:
No comments