How to Make 2024 Your Best Year Yet
Learnings from 2023, and the right attitude to have in 2024
Welcome and thank you for checking out Optimise Me, a monthly newsletter sharing research-backed, practical tips to help you optimise your self-growth and personal productivity.
Happy New Year folks!
I hope you had a wonderful holiday season. I certainly have - it was full of rest, reflection, and a whole bunch of learning. Being super transparent with you, I lost a lot of steam towards the end of the year. Man, I was tired, burnt out, and hadn’t realised I was just going through the motions. I think the word for October to early December for me was chaos.
I really resented myself for it too, and knew that if I didn’t take a true break to reorient myself and realign myself with who I believe Renée to be, something was going to crash and burn to the point beyond repair.
Even as I write this, I feel so much more joy and ease. This isn’t to say a year of graft and working does not await me - life will never be as smooth and plain sailing as we’d like it to be. However, I do feel a lot more joy because I’ve been living more intentionally and prioritised time to work on myself. In the midst of my rest period, I stayed pretty much offline, I read books on art, literature, science. I journaled a lot, I did some intense prayer and Bible studying. I watched movies, I worked out, I spent time with my family and loved ones.
It’s always funny how very simple changes, can transform how you think and feel about life.
This Monday’s newsletter is all about setting yourself up well for 2024. After having some dedicated time to really think about how my last year went, and have some real energy to muster into 2023, here are some really important, and hopefully practical ways, that you can ensure you have a smashing year. Far from it being about habit stacking and 75-hard challenges and all sorts of New Years paraphernalia we’ve been beaten over the head with in the last few years, this is all about your attitude, approach and character. What exists at your core will always radiate outward.
So let’s get your heart and mind right.
1. Focus on the private, the overflow is for the public.
As someone who is a content creator and entrepreneur, I’m pretty used to either being online or constantly around people in some capacity. I love providing value, and I love to share my journey in the hope of inspiring other people. However, in order for me to show up authentically in public, I must focus on my private ministry first. This looks like prioritising my internal, private growth - reading, praying, having accountability circles, learning from mentors.
How many of us see, especially online, people who don’t practice what they preach? The world is full of far too many experts with no expertise.
Everything you share with the world can only be animated once you have put the work in the world which resides in you.
Focusing on the public without the private is like sharing a hollow present box - it looks pretty on the outside, but even the recipient will soon find out there is nothing inside it.
Stop scrolling incessantly, and put a timer on your social media usage. Stop spending more time outside with others than spending time finding out what’s going on inside of you. Stop showing up for everyone and everything else that isn’t you, BEFORE you.
In 2024, focus not just on sharing your journey, but living it, breathing it, and becoming better.
2. Prioritise replenishing your cup.
You cannot pour from an empty cup. If there’s one thing that I have learnt again and again over the last year, it’s that I have a cup which needs to be poured into. On a daily basis.
I was definitely prone to looking forward to specific things, like vacations, or big special events. Fairly recently, a friend of mine said to me, ‘you have to find ways to enjoy your life and reality, every day.’ It really made me think about what I do to enjoy my reality on a daily basis.
You don’t have to wait until the achievement of some big milestone to enjoy your life. You don’t have to wait until you’ve bought a house, or got a promotion, or found the perfect romantic partner, or gotten into the ‘best shape of your life’. Start choosing joy today. For me, that looked like prioritising time to do something I enjoyed every day. Whether it be getting my favourite pistachio latte, calling a friend I genuinely enjoy hearing from, winding down with a book for leisure at the end of a long day - something I enjoyed has now been dropped into my day.
3. Push past your fear and your discomfort.
The life you seek to lead is on the other side of fear, shame, embarrassment and discomfort. Towards the end of 2023, I began to ask myself -:
“What would I do if I was not afraid, embarrassed, or thinking about the other person?”
My true answer would always force me to pursuit it, especially when it was radically different to what I was originally intending to do.
Folks do not care about you, as much as you believe. And even if they do, who cares? Why limit yourself to the fleeting judgement of people who don’t matter in the grand scheme of things?
Sometimes, pushing through looks like breaking - sometimes you have to break things to get your break through. My favourite analogy is one of strength training. You must cause damage to your muscle fibres, by exercising, to stimulate growth.
Don’t worry if your process of fearlessness might cause some external or internal pressure/ tearing. It’s all part of the process of embracing growth.
4. Question your desires.
Why do you want what you want?
The worst thing you could do this year is go along with what you think you want without examining the basis for these things. Do you really want the job, the relationship, the house - or are there any phantom pressures you’re facing? The thing about undue social pressure? It’ll push you into a place of desperation, and very few people act rationally from a place of desperation.
As a Christian, I believe in the necessity of constantly examining my own desires, and the extent to which they actually conform to the will of God. Are they enabling me to express my love to God and His people? Any desire which does not enable this, and instead takes me beyond this scope, has to be uprooted. You may not have the same faith or belief system as I do, but the principle still remains - identify the root of your desires, and at least make sure you are prioritising the ones which are in line with the kind of person you want to be in 2024.
5. Manage your energy carefully.
in 2024, manage your energy carefully. One of the fundamental laws of physics is called the conservation of energy - the law states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but only converted from one form of energy to another. This means you can only manage the energy you have. Spend it wisely.
How are you using the hours in your day? This does not mean that you have to spend every single working hour working, but you do have to be intentional. Even if it means being intentional about resting, which many of us simply do not do enough of. Do not ‘work your ass off’ constantly this year. In fact, keep your ass on. Working hard is a seasonal endeavour. Don’t also use this as a license to skive off and be lazy.
What I’m really saying? Be balanced and intentional in your approach to your work life balance in 2024.
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Here’s to an absolutely wonderful, intentional and purpose-filled New Year. I really pray that 2024 will be a time of great milestones, great consistency and another year to cultivate joy in your life.
And watch this space - we’re going to be bringing a bit more life to the Optimise Me community!
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