From 2023 to 2024

Wow, it has gone a full year without any posts... I meant to start writing actively in 2023, but here we are in 2024 and nothing has happened. Well here is the mandatory new year post and my new try on writing more to the blog.

Recap of 2023 goals

Remove useless stressors and replace them with things that bring me joy

This one I crushed! I took a break from school for the whole year, I only attended a few interesting lectures, but nothing else. It made a huge difference to my mental health to not study and work full-time simultaneously. I had time and energy to work on my personal goals and to actually enjoy my life and give more time to my friends and family.

I also bought a project car/daily driver for myself. I lived without a car for a few years and while I saved a lot of money I really missed having a car. I'm a car guy and living without a car felt like half of me was missing. During the summer I finally fixed the situation and bought myself a 1972 Plymouth Valiant. I have never before owned a Mopar so it has been a learning curve to learn about the engine and where to get parts etc, but I love the car. Valiant is small enough to be easy to own in the city, but it still has that muscle car character. I did some small fixes to it already during the summer, nothing is more relaxing than working on your car after a long work day. I'm really loving it! I might write more about the car in future blog posts, we'll see...

Train 4 times per week and drop weight to under 85kg

Training, yes. Weight, no. I trained really hard for the whole year, averaging 4 times per week. Mostly I trained during my lunch and this proved to be an excellent idea. Getting fresh air and movement during the lunch meant that I was able to focus much better during the afternoon. The only problem is that I like to do long workout, but I was only able to train 30-45 minutes during the lunch. For weight loss, I did lose some fat and bloating, but my weight stayed above 90kg for the whole year. I actually decided not to actively try to diet and just enjoyed getting stronger and more muscular.

Move to a bigger apartment with a dedicated office space

We moved in March and moved again in November. It's a long story why we moved twice, but all I can say is that I'm really happy with the current living situation. The rent is cheap(ish), I have a dedicated office space and really nice views. It makes a huge difference to not work from your bedroom.

Double my income

This one failed miserably. I got comfortable working at the university and just stayed in my comfort zone. By doing some lifestyle changes I was able to continue living with the university salary and enjoy the easy life of working at the university.

2023 otherwise

2023 was a boring year, but a good one still. It was probably my most stable year overall so far. For the past 8 years I have changed my life a lot every year. I moved between cities multiple times, made a career change, did an exchange year in Spain, started and finished my undergrad studies etc... 2023 was the first year since 2015 where I just lived my stable daily life. It was nice to just breath and kind of take a break. For me "just" working 9-5 feels really easy. I have always worked multiple jobs/gigs or worked and studied simultaneously. It was nice to just work and have time for other things during the evenings and weekends.

I feel recharged now and ready to tackle new goals and adventures. I don't want to increase my workload too much, but I want to finish the things I put on pause in 2023 and find the next challenges for myself.

Goals/themes for 2024

Theme: Focus on one thing at a time

This is the biggest learning from 2023 that I want to continue in 2024. Whatever I pursue, I want to focus on one thing at a time. This doesn't really mean doing just one thing at a time, but focusing on one thing at a time. I have a bad habit of trying to do everything all the time and this usually ends up with me being exhausted and needing to take a break. I want to learn to focus on one goal at a time while still working on other things. This will become clearer on later when I explain my goals for this year.

Theme: Training and health

Last year I trained hard, but moved very little otherwise and ate like crap. This year I want to start moving more outside of the gym too. I used to walk a lot and I really enjoy it. I want to start walking more daily and also occasionally try other sports too. Training 4 times a week feels really good right now, but 3 full rest days feels too much. I want to start doing other sports or at least longer walks on those rest day. My body feels the best when I get some movement every day that raises my heart rate and gets me sweating.

I also want to clean up my diet. I used to eat really clean and do intermittent fasting either daily with the 16/8 style or once a week for 24/48 hours. I have not done that for 3 years and it shows. I have gotten quite fat and unhealthy. I already started cleaning my diet after Christmas, I'm mostly eating meat and veggies/berries/fruits. That has always worked the best for me. I eat quite a small amount of carbs and get most of my calories from protein and fats. If I have a really heavy training day I might add some rice or something to get more carbs. I also did one 24 hour fast after Christmas and I want to start doing one every week. What works the best for me is to eat clean 5 days per week, fast for one day and on Sundays have one meal where I can eat whatever I want. One "cheat" meal per week is enough for me to keep my motivation up for the rest of the time. I usually feel so tired and bloated after the cheat meal that I can't wait to get back to my usual diet.

Goal: Finish Master's degree

I applied for a study leave from February to July and I'm going to finally finish my Master's degree during the time period. I almost dropped out from uni already, but I decided to instead take a leave from work and just finish the degree. I only have 3 or 4 courses and the Master's thesis left and I graduate. Although I don't think the degree will bring me much value in the future, I'm pretty sure that I will regret it if I don't finish it. Having the opportunity to take a study leave and have time and money to finish the degree without working simultaneously is a privilege and I want to use the opportunity. Who knows, maybe the Master's degree will open some doors to me that otherwise would stay closed?

Goal: Double my income (for real this time)

In 2023 I meant to double my income, but I got comfortable and stopped chasing my career goals. Working at the university has been the easiest and most comfortable job I have had in my life so far and it was easy to just stay in that position. In 2024 my goal is to either get a job in the industry or start a side hustle that will double my income. Fortunately it's not hard to double the university income so this should be an easy goal to achieve. I'm not really chasing big money here, but just to earn enough to be comfortable. I have expensive hobbies (Valiant, I'm looking at you) and I'm a avid investor so having money for both really makes a difference in my life.

Closing thoughts

Reading my old blog posts and my private journals from 2020-2022 I feel like I'm reading some grumpy old guys posts :D I now realise how burned out and tired I was then. Simplifying life and temporarily giving up on some goals has allowed me to really recharge and learn how to manage my energy. Living inside my comfort zone has been, well, comfortable. I enjoyed the easy and boring year of 2023, but in 2024 I want to use the energy and learnings to again step outside of my comfort zone and improve myself and my life.

I'm really excited for 2024 and I also finally want to start writing blog posts actively here. I have explored a lot with programming and computers in 2023 and I want to share my learnings. I also want to maybe write about my car hobby and maybe even about training and investing. Happy 2024 and see you in the next blog posts!