how to start 2024

Happy New Year!!

Sorry for being a tad quiet the final months of 2023, I took a much needed break. Now I’m back, refreshed, and ready to tackle the new year.

I hope you are too! 

I know in the past I’ve talked about not waiting for New Years to make changes in your life as you could always take the first step immediately, but now that New Years is here I can’t deny the vibes that come with it. There really is something special about crossing over to a new year.

It feels like closing a chapter to our lives and starting a new one no matter where we are on our journey, and fresh starts are always exciting. I guess I can’t forget that I started my journey based on a New Years resolution too back in 2015. January 1st 2015 I told myself I was gonna start a weight loss journey and this time do whatever it takes, however long it takes to reach my goals.

The details in between you likely know already, I hit that goal at the end of 2016.

This year I have a couple of changes I wanna make to my diet and workout routines too and I’m taking the same approach. Set the goal, do whatever it takes to get there, and give myself no time limit. 

So going into 2024, I wanted to share with you my raw thought process. Hopefully it helps you push forward and makes 2024 easier for you too.

Number one: expect setbacks.

I think the number one killer for new years resolutions is the expectation that everything is gonna go smooth and perfect. When you have that kind of expectation the moment the road gets bumpy you start thinking about quitting. The moment you drive down the wrong road you quit, where you could have just stayed on a road for an extra 10min, made a U-turn, and continued your journey.

Setbacks are inevitable.

Setbacks aren’t failures. It’s like expecting to go through life never tripping and falling down once you’ve learned how to walk. You can’t name one person that has never tripped on something their entire life. But we walk everyday, aren’t we all experts at walking?

Of course, but we still fall.

Normal.

What’s not normal is falling down then deciding to never get back up again.

We gotta treat our diet and workout goals the same. We’re gonna mess up and that’s fine. Just get back up and continue.

Number two: set your goal without a time limit.

I think a lot of times we screw ourselves over by giving some arbitrary time limit. Like “I wanna lose 20kg in 3months,” or I wanna lose 30kg in 7months”. The time frame is based on nothing but a personal “want”. That “want” creates unnecessary stress and anxiety. So what happens if you lost 5kg in 3 months when you were expecting to lost 20kg? You just quit all together and throw away all the efforts you made to lose that 5kg?

Sounds funny when I say it like that right? But it’s something I guarantee we’ve all done before. We quit cos it was “too slow” and “too slow” is subjective to our own opinions.

It’s fine to have a overarching long term goal, something to aim at, a north start to follow. That’s all fine and dandy.

But don’t hang on it too tight.

Say you’re hoping to lose 20kg in 2024, and say we’re in the final weeks of December 2024 and you’ve only lost 6kg, call that a win. That’s still progress. Sure not the speed that you hoped for but still progress nonetheless. Keep it going in 2025. At that pace you’re eventually gonna lose the 20kg in the next few years.

Why the time limit? Progress is progress. If it takes you to 2026 to hit your goals, so be it. When you hit your goals you’re not gonna care how long it took you to get there. You’re just gonna care that you got there.

Don’t limit yourself, progress is inevitable when you take it slowly.

Number three: stop comparing yourself to others.

We may all be on a similar journey, but we’re all very different. Different environments, different personalities, different circumstances, different goals, different wants and needs, just different.

The grass is always gonna be greener on the other side if you play the comparison game. It’s not a fun game. It’s not fun to keep playing victim when instead you could be taking responsibility.

Taking responsibility for what? For yourself.

Realize that you are fully in control of your actions. Sure there are all kinds of things out of your control but have you thought about all the things that are within your control first?

Comparison is the thief of joy.

Focus on yourself. Others are going faster than you when you all started at the same time? Good for them. Be happy for them and concentrate on yourself. Go at your own pace. The winner isn’t the one that reaches the finish line first.

Everyone that reaches their own finish line is a winner.

I’ll be honest with you, when I started my journey in 2015, I didn't not expect it to take almost 2yrs to hit my goals. I was expecting more like 6-8mths at the slowest pace. The journey is gonna be long, extra extra long.

If you see someone getting there quicker, great! That’s them not you.

Focus on you, and only you.

Those 3 things I’m telling myself as I kick off 2024.

2023 felt like a transition period for me. The world opened up again after shutting down in 2020-2022, lost some close ones, gained some close ones. 2024 for me personally feels like the actual continuation after 2019 (if that makes sense at all).

So I’m pumped to start this new year, I hope you are too!

I know my content has slowed down a lot in the second half of 2023, it’ll all slowly pick back up to speed in 2024. I truly am so grateful that all of you are still here with me after all these years through all these ups and downs.

It truly means a lot. 

Thank you.

Let’s keep working towards being better versions of ourselves moving forward.

Happy New Year! Wishing you an absolute epic year ahead!

Your cheerleading captain,

Po.