2024 Intentions and Goals

This essay initially appeared in the Monday morning newsletter on 1/15/24.

On January 1, Matt and I went on a New Year’s walk and talked about the year ahead. In response to me listing out the reasons I was excited for 2024 – I’m turning 30, we’re planning a wedding, work is going well – Matt jokingly said, “wait – this actually sounds like an opening scene to a rom com.” We laughed about it, but the thought stayed with me.

This is a year with some big milestones and moments. It’s a year I know I’ll look back on often.

While all of it is very exciting, there is some pressure that comes along too. How can I appreciate this time fully? How do I soak up and enjoy all it has to offer?

Enter: intention and goal setting.

If you have been reading this newsletter for a while, you know I love crafting monthly goals. What I’ve learned through the years of monthly goal setting is that the best part is not so much achieving the goals as it is the reflecting and preparation that goes into the goal setting. Setting goals prompts me to think about the current state of things, what’s coming up, and what I want less or more of. Ultimately, it directs me and helps define how I want to spend my time.

Going into 2024, I knew I wanted to continue setting monthly goals, but I was also craving something more all-compassing. I wanted an intention and set of overarching annual goals that could direct this very exciting time.

This task felt daunting at first, so I didn’t push myself to go fast in defining the intention and goals. Instead, I gave myself a gentle start to 2024, providing time and space to think about the year ahead and draft/edit my plans.

In fact, just this past week, I settled on my one-word intention and goals across a variety of categories, which I’d love to share this morning: 

2024 Intention: Delight
As I thought about 2024, themes of “celebrating” and “enjoying the process” and “presence” kept coming up for me. When I thought of the word, “delight” it just felt right (ha!).

To me, it means finding delight in the wedding planning process – both the fun and the stressful parts. It means treasuring trips planned with friends and finding ways to add moments of delights to a regular Tuesday evening. It means appreciating all that I have to be grateful for.

2024 Goals:
Personal Care & Growth

• Usher in a new decade joyfully. In April I will turn 30! I’m so excited! I can’t wait to celebrate with family and friends, and also carve out time to reflect and celebrate solo. Birthdays always prompt a feeling of new beginnings and retrospection, and starting a new decade amplifies that. I want to lean into all of it fully.
• Take BETTER, more frequent breaks. This applies both to being more intentional about the time I take off of work (fewer one-off days in favor of longer stretches of time more frequently) AND building in more breaks to my every day. I love efficiency and productivity… but it can often mean going at max capacity until it’s too late and I crash, showing up in a number of unflattering ways, from unfairly snapping at someone, to making a poor decision or feeling upset with myself. I want to work at better listening to myself and taking more breaks (even tiny ones!) before reaching the limit.
• Updated makeup routine. I’ve been doing the same makeup routine since… high school, I think? I’ve always been a bit intimidated by makeup, but with some special events coming up this year, I’d love to learn a new routine that is easy, effortless and makes me feel confident (while still looking natural). Thinking about watching the Bobbi Brown Masterclass or dabbling in a few YouTube tutorials.

Health

• Continue my weekly workout routine. Two years after my beloved Bar Method studio closed its doors, I’ve finally found a mix of workouts I love. My routine includes going to CorePower Yoga 2 times/week, Barry’s on Saturday morning with Matt, and running the days in between. Excited to keep it up this year!
• Incorporate stretching on a weekly basis. In the first week of January, I pulled something in my back. It hurt when I reached for something, when I walked, when I sat – not fun! I’m not sure if it was from sitting too much (from going back to work) or because I ran too many days without stretching, but it prompted me to want to make stretching a part of my weekly workout routine. It is so important, yet I often deprioritize or forget about it.
• Master perfect pushup form. I’m planning to start small, with 5 or so, but I’d love to work up to being about to do 24 (for 2024!) pushups in great form (on my toes!).

Relationships

• Celebrate my friends well. It’s a big year for a lot of my friends too! Lots of 30th birthdays and more! Can’t wait to celebrate everyone. I also have a few trips with friends planned that I’m looking forward to.
• Monthly Chicago-centric dates with Matt. Could be as simple as grabbing a drink at a bar on our street or getting tickets to a show downtown.  

Creativity & Fun

• Delight in the wedding planning process!! I love a project. I love a timeline. SO, I am very excited to embark on a year of planning a January 2025 wedding! While there is a lot of excitement and things to look forward to, I know not everything will go accordingly to plan and there will also be moments of stress, overwhelm and conflict. However, I want to push myself to ask myself, “how can I bring delight to this situation?” I’m also really excited about the extra time and conversations wedding planning has prompted with my parents and with Matt. It’s been a lot of fun so far! 
• Establish a Monday morning journaling ritual. I want to start my weeks in 2024 by journaling and preparing for the week ahead.

Home & Finances

• Continue tending to our cozy, calm apartment. Still loving our charming Lincoln Park apartment we moved into last summer and the way we’ve made it into a home! I want to continue making it cozy and calm with quarterly decluttering sessions, intentional purchases and a cleaning schedule that’s easy to keep up with.
• Maintain my savings systems. Last year I set up a new savings system for myself to reach a personal goal. Monthly, I had a certain amount of money transferred out of my account and into a separate, high-yield savings account. I found this to be such an easy way to save money and want to continue doing it this year, especially as I save for some of the fun things happening this year.

That’s what I’ve got for 2024! I hope you are feeling hopeful and energized for this year. If you have any intentions or goals, I’d love to hear them.