2024 Mindset, here we go!

With 2024 behind the corner, I felt this collective push to reflect on the year behind me. Wow, what a year. If a January me would see what December me sees – I would probably laugh most of it off as a joke. It seems like I wouldn’t be able to recognize myself this year, even more than usual, yet the journey has only just started. And this is a mindset I want to embody for 2024: I want to go all in into investing in myself, my experience, my vision. The only way is up, and my path is clear.

So many times, we are the ones standing in our way. In my experience, keeping a positive and grateful attitude is the most challenging thing. This has always been my biggest struggle! I tend to look at the world with rather pessimistic eyes, selling it off as realism, when in reality, no matter how many motivational books I read or therapy I have done, I still get confronted with my insecurities and feelings of inadequacy daily. I talked about my insecurity with dancing and how I got rid of it previously, but I’ll share another silly little one: I hate when people expect me to calculate fast in my head. It is like a blockade, a weird brain fog that comes, assuming from my school days when I wouldn’t understand something in a math class and someone would comment on it—the embarrassment. The funny thing is that I am now pursuing a career in finance, and guess what – in real life, you can actually use a calculator and take your time, as well as provide a service that is excellent because of just a few more other qualities such as competence, interest, empathy, etc. But yeah, we all have something holding us back in life, and mostly, it has to do with our own negative attitude standing in our way.

And how hard it is to be grateful for all we have! There is always something to complain about, and I am the best at it 😊 How often do we feel like victims, one way or another? We know it doesn’t bring us anything. Still, it is much easier to blame the circumstances or other people for our situation instead of looking within and acknowledging it was just us who didn’t dare to jump into the unknown. Fear of failure? Fear of being laughed at, mocked? Being called stupid, like, over that math homework? Or “no one will want to read/see/hear/use that, why do you think you’re all that”? Well, I have to act like the big sister that I am and tell you to flip all those voices off and stop giving a f*ck. The moment is now, and if you need to act like it is your last chance for that fact to really sink in, so be it. But maybe my previous swearing didn’t do the trick, and my rather personal story might, so I want to share the two significant moments when I really felt like a lightbulb going on in my life.

The first time was when I was randomly going to check out a group meditation program. My mom is really into all the spiritual stuff, so I joined her once to hear what it was all about. I remember we talked a lot about releasing baggage and relationship patterns. I asked a question and it was a pretty basic one: “How do I break my bad patterns, how do I not make the same mistakes my parents did?” I expected a basic answer, and maybe I got it, yet it resonated in a way nothing had ever done. The teacher said: “You decide. It is all about the decisions you make every day, every moment, every second, and every situation you find yourself in. You know what is good for you, how you want to react – decide how you will act.” To this day it is holy to me, it has helped me to change how I felt about leaving situations I knew weren’t good for me even if they felt like it at the moment. Initial feeling of loss always transformed into pride and respect when I was able to make a good decision and stick by it. And it almost always turned out to be the right thing to do in the end.

The second time was when I found a simple quote somewhere: “Procrastination is just a form of self-sabotage.” It was a bit more than three years ago; I was alone in lockdown, having honestly a time of my life for what felt like the first time, feeling wholly focused and zoomed in on a vision I had for my future thanks to this simple sentence. I heard similar quotes before, but it was like I only just got the message then. Up to that point, I had huge issues with discipline. I was procrastinating my studies and practice time, and I wasn’t really working on my visions and dreams – I was doing the necessary, don’t get me wrong, but I wasn’t standing behind it a hundred percent, and my goals weren’t high enough. I realized I was slacking off, waiting for someone to give me the motivation and discipline needed for any change, waiting for a moment when a cigarette didn’t taste good anymore, or I suddenly felt the urge to go to the gym. I realize that what I have been saying to myself all these years – meaning that I “want the best for myself” wasn’t actually true because I did not give the best to myself. My eating habits were not particularly good; I drank, smoked, indulged in negative behavior towards others and myself, let people disrespect my boundaries and therefore disrespected myself, and procrastinated all my tasks like I didn’t care about my dreams…and it finally sunk in that I really need to change this. I must build that discipline to stand my ground and fight for my vision. Walk the talk. I still fail at it sometimes. But I sure as hell have gotten so much better at it, and I am getting more disciplined each day. It feels like a confessional, but this sure was a confronting moment.

Those two moments are interconnected for me because discipline is a decision – a decision is a promise – and a promise can only be kept by having discipline. If I want to have one message for anyone reading this blog (hi, Mom!), it is to never break a promise you make to yourself. Let this be your gym decision or a morning smoothie, saving money for an essential goal of yours, or setting a boundary with a loved one…love yourself enough to be faithful to your body and soul. Every time you keep a promise, it builds trust, every time you decide to do better it adds to your confidence and respect, every time you stay consistent – you take a very successful step towards your dream self. Let 2024 be the year you and I get to do that.

Nothing of this matters if you don’t know exactly why you are doing it, so a special worksheet is waiting in the shop; check it out, and Happy New Year!