2023 Reflections and 2024 Resolutions

It’s been a long year. I won’t lie to anyone about that. A lot has happened involving personal growth, reflecting on relationships, and plenty of poetry.

Looking back at the goals I set for myself last year, I can confidently say that I’ve met over half of the 10 resolutions. I did end up travelling to a National Park with family and planned the itinerary (resolution #1). I did expand my local network and fostered stronger local friendships with coworkers and turned acquaintances into friends (resolution #5). I did purchase TPM-focused books catering towards my future career growth (resolution #7). I did say “yes” to more experiences (resolution #8) which allowed me to also grow as a person to be more comfortable with myself (resolution #10). My finances are setup in a way with which I am satisfied (resolution #9), and although I didn’t do Duolingo daily, I did manage to use streak freezes and keep up my language learning quite a bit this past year (resolution #4). I was also able to post at least 12 blogposts on this platform despite not having done it once every month (resolution #6).

The only goals I didn’t meet were going to the gym 4–5 times a week (resolution #2) and travelling to the locations on my Bay Area Speed Run list (resolution #3). I had paused my swimming membership due to other priorities and focused most of my fitness on rock climbing and other gym activities three times a week. In terms of travel, I instead ended up travelling internationally and out of state rather than within the local Bay Area.

2024 Resolutions

Moving onto my 2024 resolutions. Like last year, some of these will be follow-ups to those in 2023, and others will be net new to account for my personal goals and lifestyle changes. So, in no particular order, here are my 10 resolutions for 2024.

1. Plan a trip to a National Park — After travelling to Yellowstone National Park with family, I now have an Annual Park Pass, which means I should take advantage of it. I want to plan a trip to Yosemite NP or another NP with friends. This would be a novel challenge for me as it would mean facing rejection when inviting friends to join and a logistical challenge of selecting dates and organizing the itinerary.
2. Continue to make progress in language learning — Be it through Duolingo or other means of exposure (i.e song lyrics, video content, short stories), I will continue my journey to be a polyglot focusing on improving my comprehension of Mandarin, French, Korean, and Danish. I’ve also thrown Swedish into the mix despite its similarity with Danish. I want to become stronger in spoken Mandarin to better communicate with family members and prepare for my trip to Taiwan.
3. Challenge myself by cooking new recipes — Whether these are food items that I’ve found online or those that I’ve taken from parents and other family members, I want to spend some time cooking new foods so that I’ll be able to both eat a larger variety for myself and also cook for others.
4. Be curious — I strongly believe that in order to look outwards and start caring for others, there needs to be a strong sense of self. I’ve done that self-work and feel ready to ask questions and be curious. This will allow me to strengthen and deepen my relationships with those that I care about. I have always feared never showing up enough for my friends, and I want to spend the upcoming year focusing on that.
5. Host an event or two — This could be combined with the first resolution above; however, I do want to emphasize that I want to plan an event for my friends to challenge my hosting abilities. I watch my friends host and initiate events with awe, and I aim to be as fearless as they.
6. Master flute to the level of an 8th grader — This is in relation to the 3 Essential Elements band books that are used in almost every middle school band. I purchased an old flute and have been practicing it every now and then. By the end of 2024, I want to have finished all 3 middle school books and maybe invest in a better flute.
7. Write More Poetry — Through the past few months, I’ve realized that short-form poetry comes fairly naturally to me. As a written art form, it’s a very fluid medium through which to create stories. I want to challenge myself by writing more poetry about varying topics not specific to my own life while harnessing different emotions.
8. Expand my professional network — This is specifically a career-motivated resolution. The nature of my day job in consulting requires me to have a strong network. Not only would this help with my current consulting job, but it will also allow me to make further career hops, if desired.
9. Be More Disciplined — The way I am defining this resolution is by building and maintaining habits. I plan to read the book “Atomic Habits” as a way to figure out the best way for me to be disciplined. I don’t want to be disciplined in a rigid manner; I want to maintain habits with room for flexibility for harnessing creative moments. Another aspect to this is to let go of my fear of missing out (FOMO) on events and social time.
10. Be More Daring — Another “D” character trait. I’ve gotten a lot better at going to events alone. I’ve attended plenty of concerts and enjoyed the music and time to myself. I’ve dragged myself to do things that I think would be out of my comfort zone, like going all the way to Europe with 2 people I barely knew, who eventually became good friends. The way I want this resolution to be qualified is by how I feel at the end of the year. I want to be able to ask myself the question, “Do I feel like I’ve taken enough risks, personally and professionally?”, and be able to answer with a resounding, “Yes”.