Since 2019, the bestie and I have dedicated one of our weekly walk and talks to discussing our yearly lists. Both of us are huge fans of the Happier podcast (she’s the one who got me hooked), so it only seems natural that we create a yearly list and hold each other accountable. However, as we’ve found throughout the years, loved ones don’t necessarily make the best accountability partners. I love sharing our goals and look forward to this call every year. Over the years, we’ve really been able to fine-tune what works and doesn’t work for each of us. Both of us are Obligers at heart, but she tips towards Questioner and I tip towards Upholder.

In general what we’ve learned over the past four years of putting together lists is:

• Work to make everything quantifiable.

• If it’s not quantifiable, make it something that can be done once and crossed off.

• One-and-done items get crossed off more than tasks to be done in intervals.

• Outcomes are difficult to control; steps to outcomes make better goals.

• Accountability makes or breaks a lot of goals.

With this in mind, I revised my list again and again this year. In the past few years, I’ve put many outcomes on my lists and often had lists full of weekly tasks. There’s nothing wrong with weekly and daily tasks, especially when you’re trying to cement a new habit. I have just personally found that it takes a decent amount of mental load to track them. That’s why you’ll see a shift this year. Many of the aims are structured to do something a certain amount of times before I can mark it complete. My hope is that this is enough repetition and momentum to translate into a habit I no longer need to give brain power to, which is honestly a great segue into the one-word theme for this year.

Almost as powerful as the lists, are the one-word themes we choose. I like to use the one-word theme as the overarching, big goal that all of the list items feed into. In the past, my words have been: positivity, more/less, open, healthier, and build. As I was going through options for my one-word theme this year, I was hit with a bit of an existential crisis. We’ve done this for a decent amount of years at this point, so there’s always this force stress inside myself to continue on an upward trajectory, and that in turn leads to feelings of “when will it stop?” and “how do I get off this ride?” So then I pondered, maybe I should just forgo the list this year and let myself relax, which led to immense feelings of shame and general fears of drift and laziness without a focus.

In the midst of this turmoil, the perfect word appeared, as it always seems to just when I need it. As I lathered my hair, mid-shower, all I could think about was how while I was most definitely putting in effort in here (ladies know what I mean when I say it was a deep condition, hair washing and shave shower), it felt so comforting to take care of myself so wholly and completely. And just as all the suds swirled down the drain, the word appeared:

The more I meditated on this word, the more it spoke to what I wanted for this year. I want something to work toward, but I also want to ease the pressure off myself and just allow myself to follow the ebbs and flows of daily life. It’s about the journey, but not putting oneself under constant stress to reach the destination.

Another new tactic I’m trying this year is to think about the outcomes I want the most and structuring the list around those outcomes. My main focus items this year are relating to optimal physical and mental health, which I know sounds vague, but it really captures everything on the list. So with that, shall we get down to it?

1. Get a 24 day streak on MyFitnessPal
   If you’ve read the past few years worth of lists you know that getting to a healthy body fat percentage has been a big goal I’ve been working towards. I’ve slowly but surely been chipping away at this goal by losing 25 pounds, and in the process, getting my body fat down to 33.7 percent. The upper limit of optimal body fat for women is 30 percent, so I do have a little bit further to go, and it’s really going to come down to dialing in my nutrition. Up until this point, I’ve sporadically tracked food using MyFitnessPal, but would inevitably fall off whenever we went on a trip. My hope with this goal is that a 24 day streak will help cement this habit, whether I’m at home or away. Which leads us to our next aim.

2. Quarterly Bod Pod appointments
   Again, this service is absolutely free for me to use, so it’s stupid not to take advantage of it. Depending on the changes that unfold throughout the year, I will probably also need to redo my metabolic analysis to make sure I’m tracking for the correct deficits. A metabolic analysis simply measures your body’s basal metabolic rate and from there the trainers are able to calculate daily calorie goals based on your current level of activity. This is absolutely crucial. My score during marathon training was 1,500 and post-training it was 1,360, so basically the difference of a small meal.

3. Closet clean out
   While 25 pounds doesn’t seem like a ton, my body composition is completely different than what it used to be, and therefore a lot of my old clothes simply don’t fit anymore, no matter how much I try to convince myself they’re still okay to wear. For example, I had to go down two whole sizes in my favorite running leggings, yet I somehow keep telling myself I can just wear the old ones around the house. No—they need to go, which means…

4. Replace donated and worn-out clothes with new ones that fit
   This way I won’t miss those too-big leggings because I’ll have plenty of pairs that fit, both for lounging and for working out.

5. Happier challenge: write 24
   I was so excited when this year’s challenge was announced because it feels like I’ve been putting the desire to write more out into the universe for a couple of years now. To aim for the highest level of success, I’m giving myself flexibility with the challenge. I’m not making myself work on any particular project for the 24 minutes, and I will allow it to become 2-4 minutes (as suggested as another way to to tackle the goal by the podcast hosts) if needed while we’re traveling.

6. Write 24 blog posts
   I had this on the list before the challenge was announced, so you can see why I was even more tickled by it. I have A LOT sitting in my drafts, and I’m hoping the challenge helps me get there.

7. Create 24 reels for Instagram
   This is a novel way to challenge my creativity. I feel like I understand how to take great photos but video is a completely different beast that I have little to no training in. Even though I’m not employed full-time at this current junction, understanding how to leverage this type of social media is becoming increasingly more necessary for the types of jobs I’m suited for, so I need to get to learning to stay current in my field. Side note: I still refuse to use TikTok and here’s why.

8. Attend a knitting festival
   In staying true to my word this year, I looked for ways to add more items to the list that would bring pure joy. I’ve tried to attend a knitting festival on two separate occasions and wasn’t able to make it for reasons beyond my control. The first time both dogs were hit with giardia the night before we were supposed to leave and the second time the city the festival was taking place in was completely shutdown by a once-in-a-century snowstorm. I was crushed by not getting to attend the latter, so Mark is fully supportive in finding a festival for me to attend this year.

9. Do 24 pushups in one minute
   I mentioned in the 23 for 2023 update that after reading Outlive by Peter Attia I’ve focused much more on maintaining muscle strength as I age. My upper body has always been weaker compared to my trunk strength, which is pretty common for females. I also had the goal of passing the Air Force PT test for my age and gender back in 2021, which I did not accomplish. I think I’m pretty close on the running and sit-up requirement, but I think the pushups would lead to a fail, so it’s time to build that strength up!

10. Create a Lightroom photo preset
    This is incredibly easy to do and I’d like to see if it will help speed up my workflow so I can finally vanquish that backlog.

11. Complete a Yoga with Adriene monthly program
    I’m not ready to give up on this yoga quest yet! Again, I’ve learned how much flexibility and core stability are important as we age, and I think consistent yoga and stretching are crucial for my active lifestyle. In the past, I’ve tried to do the monthly programs but would inevitably get busy and miss a day around 8 or 9 days into the program. This year, I’m easing the requirement on myself and the yoga challenge does not have to be done consecutively for the 30 days. The more I’ve done these lists, the more I’ve seen that when the bar is low, I’m more likely to go above and beyond anyway and achieve the harder goal than if I made it hard at the start. Time will tell.

12. Support friends’ content with comments on social media
    I’ll be real; creating content isn’t always the easiest thing to do. There’s so much vulnerability in putting yourself out there. Will someone say something nasty, or worse, will nobody care? I’m always asking for comments because the algorithms push content with more engagement to more users. Leaving a comment is so simple, the algorithm doesn’t care what it says just as long as it’s there. So if I’m going to ask for comments, the least I can do is help my buddies with their engagement too, because I want to see them continue to create and share with the world.

13. Use the tripod by myself
    A habit I’ve developed is wanting quality photos of all of my knitting projects. It feels like the icing on a cake. The issue is that this often requires Mark to take the photos and sometimes he isn’t always available when the conditions are right (read: it’s not raining). We have a little remote for our cameras, so I would like to learn how to set it all up so I have more flexibility with taking photos where I’m the subject.

14. A month of sugar detox
    Now that I’m mostly sober and Dry January isn’t really necessary, it’s time to move on to my replacement vice: sugar. I’ve really gotten into the habit of having a little chocolate after dinner and it’s doing me absolutely zero favors in terms of my health goals. I will note that this sugar detox is limited to added sugar/desserts only. If I want something sweet after dinner, plain fruit is absolutely allowed.

15. Spend all of my Christmas money
    For the past few years, instead of giving us physical gifts, my parents send us Christmas money to purchase whatever we want and I have the hardest time actually spending it. I’ve always been a bit of an under-buyer and I value experiences over possessions, so you can see how this becomes tricky. I have already spent some of it, but I need to spend the rest before the year is up.

16. Plan our travel for the rest of the year
    As I said in the Year in Review post, we were granted a bonus year in Germany (yay!), so I want to make sure we capitalize on this opportunity and hit some of the places I thought we were going to have to come back for after we moved. My requirement for this is purely an outline of locations, days of leave needed for Mark, and month of travel. I know that my Upholder self will make the rest happen with the logistics.

17. Complete the Garmin half marathon training plan for a 2:16 finish time
    And this is an example of that making a goal around the steps instead of the outcome looks like! I really want to pick up my running speed, but sometimes I don’t really have control over the outcome. The course could be hillier than expected, or the weather could make or break a run. Race day may also be during a less than optimal time during my cycle (female running problems). I’m willing to do the work and see what happens!

18. Take the Harvard Happiness course with the bestie
    A joint list item! The bestie wanted to take this course, and so I said I would do it with her (it’s free).

19. Complete four Duolingo lessons per week
    After spending just over 1,000 days learning German, I’m finally in the final section, which should get me to a CERF B1 proficiency level. Admittedly, the last year or so I’ve been doing the bare minimum in the app to maintain my streak, but I’m recommitting to spending about 15 minutes per day to learning. Also, for Duo users, when I say four lessons I mean four of the big lessons, not the little levels within the lesson.

20. What’s up Wednesday
    This is another item the bestie had that I’m totally stealing. Connection and community are so important to our wellbeing as humans. I know I’ve spoken about it before but it is sometimes downright difficult to stay in touch when your time zone is so different from everyone else in your world. Both of us have had some type of list item to address this in years past, but it has always been loosely defined. This year, we’re trying a restructure to make it quantifiable and therefore trackable. The way it works is we each separately created a list of people we love but who may have fallen out of our regular communication cycle. Then, on Wednesdays we’re going to reach out to someone on the list. Can be just a text or Messenger ping saying hi, but it can also be more.

21. Do one creative thing just for fun
    I feel like I always have urges to try different crafts, so I’m allowing myself to explore instead of redirecting my energy away from it. So here’s to trying whatever I want, be it embroidery, punch needle, wreath-making, whatever.

22. The carryover: send holiday cards
    I’m doing it. I’ve set up the Excel spreadsheet for addresses, so I just need to start populating it. That said, if you would like to get holiday cards from us, please message me your address! Also, if you’re planning on moving in the near future, please include that in your note so I know to grab your new address from you once you’re all settled (looking at you mil friends with PCSes on the horizon).

23. Summer of self-care
    Inspired by my nurturing shower, I decided it would be fun to do an entire month of self-care. I was initially planning on doing this during my birthday month, but honestly it’s just too much to track with all of the new habits I’m introducing. So I’ll be implementing this closer to my half birthday month.

24. FREE SPACE
    I can’t wait to see what will be highlighted this year.

I’m so excited for the coming year! I feel like I was extremely intentional with my list this year, so I’m anxious to see how it unfolds, especially in regards to the outcomes I’m aligning toward. Did you make a list this year or have a singular goal you’d like to accomplish? Please share in the comments what your plans are for 2024 so I can support you and your efforts!

Related posts