Top 6 Lessons of 2024 – Year in Review (Part 4)

Posted On December 29, 2024

Hi Readers! I am honestly guilty of loving to review the year more than living it. Every year we all feel the same way. How are we already celebrating a new year? How have these 12 months gone by so fast? What did I even do? What didn’t I do which I planned on doing? And soon the reflection becomes a depression. But it doesn’t have to be.

Year after year, that has been my one motto: Progress is not an upward graph. It happens with ups and downs. Some times the downs can be an entire year, and if you’re lucky they can be only a few days. But, that doesn’t mean you have accomplished nothing. Progress also doesn’t look the same on everyone, and so it’s not comparable. But, what I also believe is that progress also cannot be a horizontal line, because then you’re stuck in a state of stagnation.

So, when one version of me says that it’s okay to miss one day of workout and that progress is not always only upwards, another version of me points out that I have missed five days of workout, so please stop with the pretend self-care and start with actual self-care by moving your body! Same applies to every aspect of our personal, professional, social, financial and recreational lives.

Okay, that was a lot of philosophy right at the start! But, we are only getting started, readers. Here are my 6 life lessons from the exploratory year that was 2024!

~~CONSISTENCY CAN BE FUN IF COMBINED WITH VARIETY~~

Doing the same thing every day can become boring very quickly. Preparing meals, going to work, hobbies and even exercising. But, I have noticed that when I added some variety to my every day routine, it became a lot more exciting and I found myself doing it consistently. Of course I had to prepare meals, but I used different ingredients and tried new recipes and even tried recreating a dish I ate months ago in the US. Work can get boring and routine too. Thankfully, that’s not the case with mine, because there are multiple projects that run in parallel which boost my creativity as well as critical thinking skills. Hobbies are something we find comfort in, so them becoming boring is unlikely. But, I experienced that this year. I have already yapped about not reading enough in the first post of the Year in Review series. But, to continue with the yapping, I read a lot of cozy bookish Japanese books. They were wholesome, but after a point I was in desperate need of a complex plot and unreliably flawed characters.

Lastly, exercising! This is the one area I have struggled with forever. I have been working out on and off for over 10 years, but the gaps between the ‘on’ and ‘off’ usually stretched anywhere between 12 days to 12 weeks. Out of nowhere, I started walking in September this year. I posted it on Instagram in my Close Friends list. And, then all of a sudden it became a habit. I have now been working out every day for 113 DAYS! I think one part of it was accountability. I posted every day, so I was accountable to those 20-some people, who otherwise would know that I failed if I didn’t workout. And, another factor was variety! I walked on new routes, I did yoga, strength training, wall Pilates, exercises with resistance bands. Because of this it stayed interesting with a new challenge every day and it made being consistent an aftereffect. This was definitely one of the major life lessons for me this year, and also something I plan to bring into the new year.

~~DELEGATING IS OKAY~~

I’m now leading a team of recruiters at work. There’s a learning curve to the role, but what took me a long time to do is delegating. I’m very like Monica Geller, so I like things a certain way. This can be anything from the font type to the shapes used in PowerPoint or formatting in Excel files. My previous boss was a little like that, so we got on very well. I knew exactly how she wanted things, so I could create them that way.

But when I took over this role, I had an endless To-Do list. While I still wanted things a certain way, I could not in any human way possible do it all myself. I have a very capable team, yes, but initially I felt that explaining how I wanted something would take longer than me just doing it in half the time. But, I soon realized that won’t work because of so many reasons. First is the most obvious: If I do everything, how will my team learn? Second was more selfish – If I do everything, I won’t get any work life balance. So, finally taking a leap I started delegating. It was tough, it tested my patience, it was the opposite of people-pleasing. I barely got over my fears, failed to meet a few non-urgent timelines, didn’t always get my way. But, what was fabulously wonderful is that my team stepped up, learnt new things – technical and behavioral, and on second and third instances did those things perfectly. It may have been difficult, but I finally got to a place where I could delegate without feeling guilt and anxiety.

~~TALKING IS NOT OVERRATED~~

Ironically this one is going to be the shortest one of the lot. We talk every day, but we also refrain from talking every day. We want to give someone a piece of our mind, but we hold our tongue. We want to educate someone about how their world view is hurting people, but we think that it’s not our place. In Indian culture, our families are an integral part of our support system and yet we rarely say ‘I love you’ to each other. Indian millennials who are exposed to western ideas have it difficult. We get the western way of doing things because it’s rational and logical to us, even if it might be polar opposite to how we are raised or how our community lives. So, when there is so much burden, not talking and suffering silently can become auto-pilot.

This year I learnt to get out of that auto pilot zone of silence, suffering and not speaking about my life choices. It was not easy, but it was liberating. Conversation and talking about the tough things removed the imagined hurdles I thought existed. It made way for me to be myself. So, now I believe in speaking my mind, not with a loudspeaker in hand, but just in little ways so that the real me stays real.

~~MEDITATION IS COOL~~

Similar to exercising, meditation is something I always aspired to do, but never did. That changed miraculously this year. New job, new stress. I had to do something to manage all that stress. So, I tried meditation. As with starting anything new, it was challenging. My mind kept thinking about all the tasks I had to complete at work, or how I wasn’t reading enough books, or how I have to research something or how certain people just get on your nerves every time you talk to them. It’s endless.

What was surprising is with two changes, I was able to focus better. First – I didn’t meditate sitting on the same chair where I sit when I work. (It’s obvious in hindsight, ok?) And, second – I did it lying down rather than sitting. This complete state of relaxation helped me to concentrate on my breathing. Mind wandering during meditation is something that still happens, but now I cannot skip this activity. Every day after logging out, I take out 10-15 minutes for meditation. I won’t be cliché about how it has changed my life, but I will say that I get it now. Meditation is cool, y’all.

~~ROLL WITH CHANGE~~

When there is any kind of change, I usually roll myself into a blanket and play dead. This year has taught me that’s no longer an option. I hate change, like any other sane person. I hate that the building opposite mine is going into redevelopment. I hate that I had to change my seat in the office. I hate that my bookshelf looks different after decluttering. As Lorelai Gilmore says, “As long as everything is exactly the way I want it, I’m totally flexible.” Well, tough.

This year really tested me with change – big change and a number of many small changes. In some of these, I had no guidebook of what to do. No ChatGPT helping me through it. Just living through it was the way to do it. So, I did – several times. Being on the other side of change is definitely comfortable. But, I want to be confident and okay with the discomfort before and during all the change. I can’t say I learnt doing that, but here’s to rolling with change.

~~YOUR QUIRKS WILL KEEP YOU SANE~~

I have no idea why people stay away from quirky or weird people. Every person has their own quirks, and not letting them be themselves is the odd thing, in my opinion. I love Taylor Swift’s music too much. I have stopped hiding it and started owning it. I need to move my hands in the air when I’m trying to think of a word or trying to finish a thought in my head. I collect different types of diaries but I never write in them. I click a photo of huge trees when I see them, because they’re just gorgeous to me. I laugh the hardest at my own jokes. I have to keep the volume in numbers divisible by 5. I cannot go out on my walk without wearing a cap.

Should probably stop now. LOL. But, you get what I mean? Everyone has these few or even several quirks which literally make up our personality. They will help you stay comfortable in your skin. They will make you feel like home when you’re in uncertain environments. So, don’t give them up your quirks for what society thinks is normal. Embrace the Luna Lovegood and Phoebe Buffay and Kramer and Dwight Schrute inside you!

That’s all the wisdom I had for you. I will see you in the New Year with fresh 2025 Reading Templates. Till then, happy holidays and have a fantastic new year!!

In case you missed the previous posts, you can read them below:

Top 8 Books of 2024 – Year in Review (Part 1)

Top 10 TV Shows & Top 15 Movies of 2024 – Year in Review (Part 2)

Top 10 Posts of 2024 – Year in Review (Part 3)

Until next time,