2024 started as the year of professional goals and concluded personally and socially fulfilled.
I started with goals of productivity, career and money. Why? Probably because of my Instagram feed. But maybe also to prove something, maybe to set myself up financially - whatever the reason it was just what I felt I should be doing. 20s are time to grind no?
I faced setbacks and didn't make the progress I thought I would. I felt lost and frustrated like trying to fit a piece of a puzzle in the wrong space and it just won't fit. Personal and professional goals are not mutually exclusive and that's what I kept telling myself as a way to force myself to grind.
But life has its seasons. Grinding and grit only works when it comes from a place of strong intentionality, not forced anxiety. As much as a tree fights to hold its leaves in autumn, it still has to let them go and focus inwards if it wants to blossom in the spring. Maybe I was in a different season.
It made me reflect on my why - not just what my goals are, but the underlying needs and values behind them: the life I want to live, how I want to feel, with whom, doing what. At its core, a “why” has no specific shape. We don’t desire something unique and specific; we desire feelings and the fulfilment of needs within us, and there are countless ways those can manifest.
Yet, we often view our goals through the lens of what society deems desirable - wealth, fame, leisure. In a world obsessed with meritocracy and responsibility, we feel guilty for not aiming higher, not reaching for the moon. But sometimes the moon pulls us far from the treasure already within reach.
Having the right destination doesn’t matter quite as much as having clarity on what you’re desiring from it and the awareness to recognize when your path is bringing you further or closer to it.
Temporary pain in pursuing goals is often necessary, but too often we chase the wrong things, forgetting our deepest why. This can lead to unnecessary suffering and steer us further from what we truly need. The dance between the pursuit of what we want with the acceptance of what we truly need for fulfilment is quite the tango.
It took me a long time to process and be honest with myself, to accept that my goals didn’t need a specific shape to meet my needs and create a life full of love, laughter, and growth. Instead of forcing a particular manifestation of those goals, I chose to follow the flow of life and give it my all.
This year, that was reconnecting with "unproductive" hobbies like guitar, reading fiction, playing board games and daydreaming in nature. Doing things and spending time with people who make me feel me. I hosted friends more, moved my body more, tried new things and built community.
This year was also the first in seven years that I didn’t move place. It felt strange, but deeply grounding. Having my outside world stable, allowed me to make some renovations in my inside world - and boy it was due. Struggles and hardships will always find you, but your relationship with yourself is yours to nurture - you’ll spend your whole life with it, so better make it homey.
Even though I wasn’t focusing on it, I saw growth occur all by itself, naturally. I felt like Dobby after receiving a sock - light and energized instead of heavy and daunted.
Sometimes what we need aren’t more goals, but more living, more explorations to test our hypotheses and the courage to answer honestly. Life has our back and if we let go of our expectations of the what and when, it often surprises us with what we actually need. We don't know where we will end up, but we can choose curiosity and keep on exploring intentionally.
That ended up not being the year I thought I wanted, but the year I needed.
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