We’re six months into 2024. Time doesn’t feel real anymore. Winter was an excuse to be lazy but we’re in the throes of summer now. Last summer I thought, By next summer I’m going to be in such a different place; I’m going to be the best version of myself to date; I will be thriving! As I say every year when looking forward to the imagined possibilities that the luxury of time provides.
Where are my results? My days are still full of me looking for distractions until bedtime. I still feel like I’m floating along, trying to find my footing, trying to catch up to the person I’m supposed to be. I don’t feel proactive. And yet, there has been a change. Not the dramatic one I hope for every year. This is not a metamorphosis, but if it is, I can’t see the butterfly yet. Every year I think I’m going to emerge in the Spring, happy and ready to live life to its fullest. 2023 was hard but in some ways 2024 has felt harder. Yet I don’t want to go back. I want to keep moving forward despite not knowing what’s out there for me, if anything at all.
I thought 2023 was my year of healing and 2024 would be my year of thriving. But what does it mean to thrive? How do we do it? How do we measure it? What does thriving look like for each individual? I think that’s part of the problem. We view thriving as a singular experience. You can only thrive if you’re happy with your job, have some kind of love life (or at the very least aren’t haunted anymore by past experiences or succumbing to downloading Hinge again), go out with friends all the time, and devote yourself to hobbies. You can only thrive if there’s nothing to complain about, nothing to fix. But the more I live the more I realize that’s just not true. It’s an impossible task and unfair to our mental health. After it rains outside, we don’t look at the flowers and think they’re not thriving just because they’re all wet.
If you’re one of those people who looked at the calendar today and thought, Shit, what have I DONE this year? then you’re not alone. It’s easy to write goals on January 1st when we have all the time in the world to get to them and even easier to ignore them for that very same reason. But ignore what you wrote down for a second. What positive changes have happened this year that you didn’t expect? For me, it’s running. I can’t go more than a couple days without running now. Even if I think I don’t want to do it, I get up and get started and feel so much better. I guess I’m ~building healthy habits~. I also impulsively took a solo trip this year. And of course, my substack has grown beyond my imagination. We’re almost at 500 subscribers and I’m feeling inspired every day by the wonderful people here. Think about something, anything, no matter how small. All of it is important. All of it matters. I promise.
Now, to hold myself accountable, I’m going to review my 2024 ins/outs and see how I’ve been doing with them so far.
my 2024 ins and outs
IN
separating ego from everything I do - hm, this one’s tough. I think I have gotten better at this but there’s room for improvement.
russian literature - sorry but I gave up on Anna Karenina again. It’s just so dense! But I’m giving myself grace. Instead of starting all over, I’ll just pick up where I left off when I feel like it. Dostoevsky, you’re next!
skill building - copywriting? no. running? yes.
embracing imperfection - i’d say we’re doing good with this one. progress not perfection!
self-discipline (but being gentle about it!) - meh. i think i’ve been a little too gentle with myself. my therapist thinks it’s a mind issue and not a discipline issue but I don’t know.
post on social media then dip - surprisingly this one has been easy! social media just isn’t that fun anymore. the little content creator goblin inside of me is exhausted. sometimes i’ve gone days without checking Instagram. DAYS! i also deleted twitter, threads, and tiktok. my accounts are still up, just not active. just having Instagram and Notes has been more than enough. my mind feels less cluttered and I feel the urge to scroll less (most of the time). unfortunately, touching grass does work.
phone off on sundays - did this for a while but it’s not working for me anymore and that’s okay!
writing that damn novel - does thinking about it count as writing?
OUT
referring to myself as a “twenty-something teenage girl” - girl, grow up!!!!! - success! i’m almost 28, actual teenage girls scare me.
mindless phone scrolling, unless i’m doing it to avoid eye contact with creepy men, in which case it’s for survival - guilty! but I think going down rabbit holes about the Chernobyl disaster and other things shouldn’t count. it’s educational! the Instagram and Facebook reel scrolling has GOT to stop, though.
holding myself back - 50/50. i’ve challenged myself with some new things this year but I am constantly holding myself back when it comes to career-related things. i think it’s both a mental block issue and a discipline issue yet i’m willing to bet my therapist would fight me on this.
caring about how i’m perceived (as long as I’m happy with myself) - i’d say i’m mostly doing good with this, probably because i’m posting less on social media. but when it comes to how the people in my life perceive me….
breaking my boundaries for the comfort of others - i’m a chronic people pleaser but I think i’ve gotten a little better! sometimes it’s hard because I don’t know that I have a certain boundary until after someone has crossed it.
rumination - HA. HA HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA we’ll try again next year.
We’ve still got the rest of 2024 to do something, anything! Don’t waste it. <3
To see what I get up to when I’m not writing, follow my Instagram at mjewrites.
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Dr. Kristin Neff wrote a book called Self-Compassion, and she talks about how it’s common for people to think if they’re gentle or tender with themselves that it’ll make them lazy/less inclined to meet their goals/etc. It was so helpful for me to read her work on why that’s not the case and how self-compassion serves us more in the long run than self-esteem. The book changed my life!
I loved reading this!! you've really rehabilitated the in/out lists for me…it's quite fun to check in on one's personal in/out list and see if the year was actually aligned with those intentions and predictions
also really loved your thoughts on our unrealistic idea of thriving—thriving is not "nothing will be bad or get worse or feel like a struggle again, EVER, all difficulty is in the PAST"…existence simply does not work that way! (a big theme in Buddhism, ofc)