Get Back Up And Keep Going

Hi everyone. I hope your year is off to a great start. I am behind schedule, surprise, surprise. But, I’m happy nonetheless and doing my best to cross a few things off my list. I’m overdue to recap my wins and misses for 2024, so here’s a quick rundown on how things went. In the meantime I am polishing off my list of 2025 goals, which I hope to publish soon after this 2024 recap is out.

In quick summary, I got knocked down a lot in 2024. But, I did my best to get back up and keep going. And most importantly, I feel the year ended a lot better than it started out. So, cheers to ending strong!

But funny enough I also just realized that I failed to properly record all of my goals on my mobile cheatsheet. I had a summary list of my 2024 goals on my phone that I kept referencing throughout the year—but it was actually missing a lot of my original 2024 goals that I published here.

I was supposed to finish copying over a summarized list to my phone last January, but I got distracted and completely forgot. Ugh, foiled again. At least I still had a decent number of wins.

Wins for 2024

Here are some of the highlights of my successes in 2024.

• Learned 3 new podcast editing skills
• Kept dedicated office hours
• Completed work on another book
• Continued to save for 6 months—ended up saving all year
• Taught my daughter how to read 50 words—really got her to closer to about 100!
• Taught my son 3 songs on the piano—he even composed his own song!
• Improved my tone and word choice with my kids
• Helped my daughter pass a food challenge
• Saw my dad—my kids had such an incredible time bonding with him
• Family photo shoot—didn’t end up needing to pay for one b/c my husband is an amazing photographer
• Continued dancing
• Took vitamins and calcium regularly
• Slept by 11:30 at least once a week
• Got a mammogram
• Got a complete physical
• Read 5 new nonfiction books—got through 4.5, close enough 😉
• Maintained my weight—I ended up losing five pounds!
• Spent less time arguing
• Created a filing system for my work and personal files
• Shaped and pruned the entire yard
• Made a list of house rules
• Streamlined food prep and meals
• Got to know 10 new people
• Remembered all the 1st grade families’ names—Well, I got to about 95%. That’s close enough.
• Consumed content for enrichment and knowledge—IG has been a fun, occasional resource for recipe inspirations and parenting tips/commiseration.
• Got some new wardrobe pieces

I also happily had a few more additional wins as seen below. These weren’t part of my goals list, so they feel like bonuses.

• Figured out how to stop WordPress from displaying post titles vertically in the back end
• Did more driving, including taking my son to the doctor and for a dinner date, gym practices, school drop offs and pickups, errands, and picking up my dad from the airport
• Hosted a great egg hunt party for 11 kids and parents, which took a ton of prep
• Went to two amazing concerts, a Bollywood party, a fundraising gala, and many outings with friends
• Saw my kids ski for the first time
• Took care of the kids on four flights without any major incidents
• Went completely gluten free with my daughter, which has been a total life changer
• Helped my daughter adjust to wearing glasses and start vision therapy
• Took over all of my mother’s finances and paid off all of her revolving credit card debt
• Led the charge at a few volunteer events at school, and
• Planned some great date nights

Mehs and Misses for 2024

• Build out and organize 4 closets: I got additional Elfa shelves to increase the usability of three closets. But I failed to better organize them to my ideal liking.
• Swear 50% less: I probably came closer to 25-30% less.
• Write 6 posts for Untemplater: I only wrote four on Untemplater, but at least I wrote about 22 articles across multiple sites and I spent a ton of hours on my book project.
• Manage operational cash flow monthly: I only averaged quarterly.
• Hydrate better daily: I stopped drinking caffeine, but I am still too forgetful with drinking enough water.
• Get more compliments than complaints: I felt my boss was frustrated with me on and off last year, but I think things improved a little. I will strive to keep improving in 2025.
• Learn some productivity hacks: Although I got better at reducing sleep deprivation, I didn’t really utilize any smarter ways to get more things done.
• Fix some back-end issues: I didn’t do enough research on search console errors, nor did I fix all some broken things in the back-end.
• Work on active listening and not interrupting: I didn’t make any significant improvements here.
• Keep up with what’s trending: I finally started using Instagram on occasion for educational purposes. But I’m still pretty out of the loop with the younger generations and the latest slang.
• Brush ma shoulders off. I still have an instinct of getting defensive when confronted, but I got a bit better in the second half of the year.
• Decorate the walls in our new home: I completely avoided this, ha.
• Get a REAL ID: Still procrastinating, but will have to do this in 2025.

Contently Looking Forward

So there you have it. That’s my 2024 goal recap. I had 37 wins and 13 meh/fails for an average score of 74%. That would translate to a C average on paper. But I feel like I did more like a B/B- so I guess that’s pretty good after all.

It’s going to be a busy first quarter for me, so I look forward to crossing more things off of my to do list. And I’m excited about the days getting longer.

Untemplaters, did you review your 2024 goals? Even if you didn’t accomplish everything you wanted, that’s ok. Use your pushes and fails as motivation to fine tune your goals list, come up with new strategies, and get a strong start to the new year!