Again, I want to start by saying that this is going to be a long post. These reflective posts are how I make sure to live my life intentionally. They matter to me and I love being able to look back on them in future years. I know that this might not be interesting to many (if not any) of you, so please feel free to skip it. If some of you find it interesting, all the better.

This particular exercise is following Susannah Conway’s Unraveling 2023 sheet. You can download it right here. I split the reflective questions looking back on 2022 in and the questions to help clarify goals/dreams for 2023 into two posts. This is part II. All questions are Susannah’s and are copyrighted to her.

What’s your word for 2024? explore

How does this make you feel? It makes me feel excited and curious. Also intentional.

Why is this what you need for 2024? As I move towards my 50th birthday, I want to fully embrace who I am and what I want. For me to own and embody all of that, I need to know what it is. 

If you embodied this every day in 2024, what would you do differently? I would be the true and authentic me. I would let go of all the things that I am carrying that aren’t my values, opinions or thoughts. I would release old beliefs. I would try different things until I find what feels true to me.

What one thing could you do daily to anchor your word(s) into your routine? Each night I can assign a number to all the things I did that day so I can get closer to gauging how much I liked them so I can slowly decide what I do that I enjoy and what I do out of some other belief.

What are you looking forward to in 2024? I am looking forward to learning more about myself. 

What are you feeling apprehensive about? So many things. My kids. A possible new role and whether I will like it. Home. All the unknowns this year come with that I just feel overwhelmed thinking about.

In which areas of your life are you ready for change and growth? I am ready to step into who I am and I am ready to shed what’s not mine. I want to really fit in my own skin this year.

What parts of yourself will you nurture in 2024? I am going to nurture all of myself inside and out.

Fast-forward to December 2024. You’re sitting in a café, musing over the last 12 months. Where do you want to be…

… in your head? (work, dreams, goals) I want to be really happy at work. I want to feel like I am doing a good job, being helpful and also like it’s not as hectic as it feels right now. I want to really love my team and my peers. Let’s hope this is possible. 

… in your heart? (relationships, family, friends) I want to honor my friendships and invest in the people who matter to me. I want to have an open and honest relationship with people being who I am and feeling grounded in that.

… in your soul? (beliefs, practices, self-love) I want to be at peace. I want to be my open, generous and loving self. 

… in your physical world? (home, health, hobbies) I want to be healthier. Realistically I want to be thinner, too. And I want to keep doing art. I want to be nourishing my body well. I want my home to reflect who I am.

air

Identify 3 unhelpful beliefs about yourself you’re ready to release:

1. I am not good enough.
2.  If people really saw who I am they wouldn’t like it.
3. I am alone.

Decide 3 duties or commitments you feel ready to let go of in 2024

1. I am ready to let go of working this hard.
2. Feeling responsible for others’ happiness.
3. Excusing the behavior of others.

List 3 skills you’d like to learn or improve in 2024 

1. Art: lettering, watercoloring, and sketching.
2. Languages: Korean and Japanese
3. I want to journal and exercise more regularly.

List 3 books you can’t wait to read this year: Like all years, I will read hundreds of books this year.

How could you bring more calm into your world this year? I can continue to start my mornings slow. I can go to bed earlier. I can do more yoga. I can slow down in my doing, thinking, and talking. All of which will help. I can also be and let be.

water

Identify 3 things about yourself you cherish & value 

1. I am fiercely loyal and protective of my people.
2. I care and love deeply. 
3. My capacity is quite high.

Decide 3 ways you could be kinder to your body this year

1. I can drink a lot more water (and less coke zero!)
2. I can feed it nutritious food. 
3. I can sleep a lot more.
4. I also can exercise kindly
5. I can put moisturizer and sunscreen more often
6. I can take off my makeup!

Brainstorm 3 ways you could deepen connections with loved ones in 2024 

1. I can tell them specifically how I am so grateful for them.
2. I can take time to experience things with them.
3. I can buy them things that make me think of them.

List 3 people you could extend compassion to (friends, family or strangers) 

1. People struggling at work. G2G.
2. Myself.
3. My kids.

How could you bring more love into your life this year?  I can spend a lot of time noticing the kindness of others. I can spend time doing what truly gives me joy. I can spend time giving to others. 

Fire

Identify 3 interests you’d like to explore more in 2024 

1. Cooking with the instapot – making healthy simple dishes
2. More art + sketching.
3. Meeting new people.

Choose 3 ways you’ll nourish your imagination this year

1. Taking new classes.
2. Watching different movies
3. Reading.

Brainstorm 3 ways you could bring more creative joy into your world

1. Watercolors + gouache
2. 100 day projects
3. Classes.

Write down 3 dreams you’d like to manifest this year

1. Finding peace.
2. Releasing the past.
3. Finding my personal style.

How could you bring more playful energy into your life this year? I would love to create a fun way to explore certain things in my list. Clothes, food, hair, makeup all of these can be a ton of fun.

Earth

Identify 3 ways you could bring more mindfulness to your mornings 

1. Short meditation.
2. Setting one intention.
3. Giving myself extra time.

List 3 ways you could cherish your home this year

1. Buying fun pillows.
2. Cleaning up a few of the corners I let go.
3. Removing the covid setup.

Decide 3 ways you could connect more deeply with nature in 2024 

1. Sitting in my yard with the firepit.
2. Going hiking.
3. Watching the sun set.

List 3 places in your city, town or neighborhood you’d like to explore 

1. More places to watch the sun set.
2. Learning to drive to the airport.
3. Going to different work buildings.

How could you bring a sense of groundedness into your life this year? I think it would help me to do more yoga, more meditation and more baths. All of these help me feel grounded and spacious.

Back in 2013, our January OLW assignment involved setting intentions and I really enjoyed that, so I thought maybe I can do that instead. 

• January: Exploring Feelings: what makes me mad, happy, joyful, grateful, sad, angry? Which feelings do i have trouble expressing. What’s my goto feeling? What do i feel most often? What is my idea of joy?
• February: Exploring Exercise/Food/Sleep: what do i like to eat, drink, when do i like to eat, what about it matters to me. What kind of exercise do i like? Alone or with others? What about it? What time do i like to sleep? What time doi like to wake up. What would be my ideal bedtime and waketime routines why?
• March:  Exploring Style: shoes, clothes, earrings+accessories, makeup, perfume, my hair.
• April: Exploring Work: what type of work do i like, what matters most to me at work, what has to be true. What am i good at, why?
• May: Exploring Adventure: what’s my sense of adventure, where do i like to go, what kind of vacation do i like? What feels fun vs thrilling? What’s my idea of vacation?
• June: Exploring Relationships/Love/Family? What does it mean to me to be in a relationship? How do i feel about being a partner, a mother, a family? What’s my definition of family? 
• July: Exploring friendship: what do i care about when finding/keeping friends? How do i make new friends? How many friends is enough? What’s my expectation from friends? What kind of friend am i? 
• August: Exploring Media: What kind of art do i like? What kind of music do I like? What kind of TV, movies, books, why? How do i find new ones?
• September: Exploring values: what matters to me, why? What doesn’t matter to me? What do i need to be true no matter what? What can i never forgive? What do i need to let go of? 
• October: Exploring Home: what colors, styles, mess/clean, bedsheets.
• November:  Exploring Hobbies: what do i like to spend my time doing, why? What do i like learning? Do i like being a beginner or expert? Why do i like these types of things? Do I like depth or breadth which in which case? What would i like to master?
• December:  Exploring what to let go: Now that I know all i know, what do i let go, what else is there for me to release?

The Wrap-Up

This year I will say NO to anything that doesn’t feel true to me.

This year I will say YES to exploring and trying new things.

I wish for 2024 to feel true and real to me. 

What do you REALLY want this year? Name it here! I want to let go for once and all of all the “should” and find and embrace true myself. 

I wholeheartedly believe that everything is possible in 2024

Time TravelClose your eyes for a moment and imagine stepping into the shoes of you from December 2024, one year from now. You are one year older and one year wiser and you’ve lived every day of 2024 fully and completely. You have a message of encouragement about 2024. There’s stuff you want to share… stuff you’re eager to tell yourself. When you’re ready, open your eyes, pick up your pen, and write a letter from your future self, starting with Dear (your name):  Dear Karen, you made it. I am so proud of you. Look how far you’ve come. You got this.

As with all the previous years, I knew I wanted to pick my core desired feelings this year, too. If you want to know more about core desired feelings, please go to my post from 2016 and you can see the links there.

I usually pick words to sit alongside my olw. And to do that I follow Danielle Laporte’s Core Desired Feelings framework, but this year, the words came to me really quickly without even having to do any exercise. These words speak to me deeply at this moment in time. And they are all ways I deeply want to feel in 2024.

Slow: i would like to slow down and let myself move slowly and more intentionally. I’ve been thinking a lot about slow long walks, slow yoga, and other ways to move my body and build my strength slowly and gently. I tend to do everything fast, my brain works too fast and i speak fast, i listen on 2x speed to everything and it’s always go go go. I want to experiment with slowing down and seeing what happens.

Ease: this is a little like slow but it’s more about letting things be. Not taking on what’s not mine to carry. Not making things about me. Holding something momentarily and then letting it go. Allowing myself to choose ease. This is not always doing what’s easy. But choosing to let something be easy by not making it harder in my head.

Curious: this is a good partner to explore. I want to be more curious this year. Choose curiosity over certainty. Curiosity over judgment. Curiosity over cruelty. I want to be curious about myself and about others. This might be the closest word to “open” for me at this moment. Being curious keeps me open.

Release: This was to be my word for 2024 for so long that it had to be my companion for this year no matter what. Nothing has managed to ground me as well as restorative yoga ever. And this one particular pose allows me to release everything and completely empty my brain. That moment feels like the closest i’ve ever been to freedom and it’s a moment of fully being in the present moment with complete emptiness. I cherish it.

Kind: This is the feeling I want to hold on to the most in my life in general. I want to be kind to everyone. My people. Strangers. Workmates. And of course the hardest person of all, to myself. I feel the most myself when I am kind. I feel closest to my true authentic self and I want to hold on to that feeling forever.

So there you go: slow, ease, curious, release and kind are the group this year that will ride shotgun alongside explore. Here’s to hoping this year is abundant in its gifts.

This year’s One Little Word came to me in the most unexpected of ways. I think each year, I go through a period where I think I am going to pick the word “light.” It feels hopeful and magical to me. Letting go of things, looking to the light, carrying light. I can go on and on for why light really speaks to me.

But then the moment seems to pass and I just move on to other words. This year was no exception. I wanted to pick the word “release.” In fact, I was pretty sure it was going to be my word. They I thought of why I want to release (not just what but why) and I realized it was in service of “ease” so I thought maybe that should be my word. Not what to do but the end goal because maybe I’d get there a different way. So it was. Ease.

So it was until a few weeks ago, I was reading some words, I can’t even remember why now but the word “explore” jumped out at me and wouldn’t let go.

Explore.

In any other year, it would feel like this was an external word. Like 2020 when I picked “wild” and what a disaster that turned out to be since it was the year we wouldn’t be allowed to go anywhere. 

But for 2024, explore means something completely different to me. I am turning fifty this year. I am not afraid of getting old. I am not sad that I am getting old. At best getting old is a privilege and at worst, it’s just a progression of life. It’s the order of things and I don’t mind when it’s my turn in the order of things. But, what I do mind is that there are many parts of me where I am not sure if it’s really me or my upbringing or my parent’s values or my society’s norms or random ideologies that someone put in my head at some moment when I didn’t think to process it. 

I’ve been telling my therapist for a while now that one of my major goals for this year is to figure out who I am. What it means to be me. What are the things I believe in. And what are the things that I need to release because I no longer believe them or maybe I never did.

So when I saw the word EXPLORE I realized it’s my year to explore who i am. What do i like? What do i love? What do I feel indifferent to? I want to spend a whole year exploring my inner world. My own taste. My own preferences. My own choices. I want to walk into my 50th year knowing and connecting with who I am deeply. 

Now that I write it down, it feels scary and like a tall order. And I try to never pick words that are striving words. I want words that hold me and excite me. So I expect to hold this one lightly. I will enjoy it and not hold myself to a standard I can’t meet. I am not going to undo 50 years of work in one year. I will not have all the answers. I don’t expect to. 

I will just start the journey. 

What better way to step into my 50s than being an explorer of who i am.

Here’s to a year of exploration.