2023 has been the year of growth and self-awareness for me. There were challenges in the way, but I am getting closer to a solution for all of them.
At the beginning of the year, I was dealing with a teacher who was consistently losing my assignments, which demanded my full attention, leaving little room for personal growth. However, after the school year was over, I had a chance for developing my identity and awareness of who I am as a person. One of the things which really helped in progressing forward was writing, which I hope to do more of in 2024.
There is one word that can define what 2024 will bring: development. It will be development in many fields, such as collections, learning, relationships, and more. Here are my resolutions for the new year.
Collecting
While collecting can become hoarding or lead to financial strain, there are many steps which I have taken in 2023, such as reducing the clutter in my room, and having a collection which should not take much money. I hope to be able to collect one unique pen a day, which can be found at college fairs or other places for free or cheap. This is somewhat of an peculiar collection to have as a resolution, but something which I wished to grow, but never did. At some point, I hope to make a spreadsheet so I don’t start collecting many duplicates.
Learning
This year, I do not wish to focus on learning in only one particular domain of knowledge, like psychology or sociology, but in every field I am interested in which at the current time includes the ones mentioned before and AI, biomimicry, botany, law, linguistics, new religions study, psychology, sociology, and more. Outside academics, I also hope to become more proficient in Canva, photography, social media management, and writing.
I understand that the above is certainly a lot of goals. However, more time will likely be spent on psychology than any of the others due to my current planned major. This resolution is a goal to become more proficient in more than one field, as I hope to be a polymath one day. High school will also end soon, making pursuing my own studies more of a possibility.
Relationships
This is something which I have consistently struggled with throughout my life, but I am closer to actually fixing this problem. For example, I tend to forget to text someone back, not because I don’t care about them, but due to it simply falling out of my mind, resulting in a delayed response days later. I have found the app Clay and was initially reluctant to using it due to wanting to centralize all my documents in one place: Obsidian. However, once I started using this, along with Sunsama I feel that this will soon be a problem of the past. I currently only have four people on this app, but hope to slowly grow the amount of connections I consistently stay in contact with not to overwhelm myself.
I have also made a resolution to try to avoid toxicity within my life. While not all of the people within my life were terrible or malicious, there certainly was a few people I interacted with who were. I hope to reduce the interactions with toxic people to zero, or at least interact with fewer who are toxic this year.
Professional Development
This is a something which has stumped me for a while now, but I feel that I am getting closer to a solution than ever before. Polymaths usually have difficult career choices, and as an aspiring polymath, there is no difference with me. I have decided in 2024, I should volunteer for a minimum of 2 different places in different roles such as a researcher, social media manager, and more. While I mostly hope to be a researcher, that isn’t all I want from life, leading to looking into multiple careers by volunteering in that field a necessity. It also has the bonus of looking good on future college applications too.
Writing
There are two goals which I need to work on within my writing, which are both writing more and writing more high-quality works. While most of my previous works were informative, they weren’t exactly deep and added little to the discussion rather than repeating what was already said. While the citing of previous works is important to have something to build upon, I hope to elaborate further in the future. There is also the wish for writing more, which will soon happen due to home school likely happening soon too, giving me 40 more hours, along with the 3 hours a day for transport to and from school, leading to an overall gain of 55 hours a week.
There is also a tendency to pick a niche within Medium, but this is something which I wish to not do this year. My content this year largely was on therianthropy and reflected on past experiences. While that is and will always be a portion of who I am, I am certainly more multifaceted than that. While you can still expect posts on therianthropy, also expect posts on any subject which I am interested in at that time.
Write Yours!
While New Year’s Resolutions is not the only way to improve life, it is a clear example of the “fresh start effect,” or how we make habits stick by taking advantage of some shedding-of-self moments, which I learned from Liz Moody’s “100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success.”
Use this fresh start effect to set a few goals for yourself, whether it be something new you want to learn, relationships you want to build or strengthen, or more. When you think on this, it will allow you to understand what you wish to change and what you wish to keep the same.
I’m leaving you with the goal to reflect on aspects of your life and set a resolution for yourself, whether it be something you wish to change or something you wish stays the same. If you do so and publish it, or just want to share below, please feel free to do so. Happy New Year!
References
Moody, L. (2023). 100 Ways to Change your life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships and Success. Harper Wave.
Sturg. (2024, January 1). My 2024 Not-New Year’s Resolutions — Funny, Inc. — medium. Medium. https://medium.com/funny-inc/my-2024-not-new-years-resolutions-dff0d1908844
