2024. My mum-in-law, aka my best friend, loved even numbered years. She said great things happen in even years. 2024, a shiny new year. Full of new plans, adventures, and … resolutions?
Resolutions
New Year resolutions, according to historians, began about 4000 years ago, and used to be made when the New Year began – which back then was mid-March instead of January. Babylonians were believed to be the first to initiate this tradition. They would promise to pay debts to their gods and return borrowed objects.
In 46 BC, Julius Caeser reformed the calendar to start the year in January, inspired by Janus the God with two faces. One symbolically looked back to the previous year while the other looks forward to the new. Here, promises would be made moving forward. Over the years the tradition/superstition continued.
Big jump to now where resolutions consist of huge commitments ripe for the breaking: quit smoking, lose weight, drink less alcohol, drink more water, new career goals etc etc.
I, like most others, set regular to-do’s – love them, live by them. All good, new year is no different, but the last 6 years or so have been. Different. I now set themes.
Themes
It’s always one single word, and I return to it repeatedly, in particular when making decisions. This year is my most exciting theme to date.
Last year’s theme was ‘joy’ – boy, did we benefit from that! We carried out a large build project. It’s been incredible. A privilege. But if you watch any episode of Grand Designs, you’ll understand that a year-long build, regardless of how amazingly awesome, isn’t without stress. I think we managed the whole project relatively successfully owing to the default mode, ‘joy’. Any time things got tricky, decisions were made based on how much joy they would bring. Admittedly, it made 2023 quite a hedonistic affair, we drank a little more, ate a little more, celebrated whatever we could, prioritised family, and worked a lot less than usual.
The year before was ‘courage’. We entered 2022 with heavier hearts, having lost my mum-in-law law in December 2021, alongside some other big stresses – and not good big stresses like building houses. We definitely benefitted from courage that year. My dad-in-law sadly passed in the summer, and their losses still hurt. It was an honour to enjoy 25 years with an extra set of parents and one I never took for granted. Courage helped us through 2022.
2021 started with an ‘adventure’ theme. Covid had started to let people do things again, and we planned to take full advantage and get back out there as much as possible. Only this time we had a new addition, Derek the dog 🐕- it was a year-long adventure, for sure.
Back again to the here and now, this year’s theme. My boldest to date.
First, let’s put in some context : 2024 is a year where I want to publish four of my books via my press – Creative Hats, sell two new titles to alternate publishers, complete my PhD, grow my business tenfold, publish forty new titles/authors, carry out monthly literary events on top of all the new courses I am rolling out and, all the while freeing up time to carry out a summer European road trip adventure with the family. Ideally several weeks long. Big plans. Huge. Plans which I am a million miles from achieving but feel confident and optimistic nonetheless.
So, this year’s theme is ‘me’. I aim to prioritise myself. I like busy, I like studying, I like working, throwing myself inside projects but the last few years I have been super side tracked and big decisions have been directed by the needs of others, often rightly so. This year, my theme being ‘me’ means when big decisions crop up and things eat away at my time, I can repeatedly come back to – how does this benefit me. I know this sounds ridiculously selfish, but if I really want to help my family, friends, students, and business, then I need to make bigger advances with my progress and success.
I’m super excited, and if you’ve read this far, then I’m glad to have you on board. This website, my author platform, is a step in the right direction. 2024, an even year, which, according to my second mum, means great things will happen. There wasn’t a huge amount of evidence for her logic on that, but I’m going into 2024 with gusto as I’m confident it’ll be grand. 😉
Happy New Year.
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