{goals} 2024 reflection – what went well?

Friends, I have 10 questions I’m using this year to do my reflection exercise.

I’ve already done a work reflection (on my last work day of 2024 – Friday) and it was good to work through 5 pages of questions and prompts as I considered what worked and what didn’t this year.

I won’t get to work through all 10 of the questions here on the blog but I most certainly will do so in my bullet journal. What I do want to do is work through 4 questions – reflect on my 24 in 2024 list (done), what worked, what energised and delighted me, and reflect on my 2024 word of the year (whole). That will take us into the first week of 2025.

So for today, what worked this year, or what went well?

1. Having my 24 in 2024 list. Here is the update post.
2. I bought a car that I love. I paid for it in cash (thank you, past self, for saving) and every day when I had to travel to all my medical appointments, I was SO GLAD that my car was reliable and had amazing aircon.

3. Exercise – I exercised three times a week most weeks of this year. I obviously could not exercise for 6 weeks while recovering from surgery but I had a good year of exercise. Twice a week Zumba and weekly Spanish. Of note, I tried a stretch class and a pilates class and…. they are not for me.
4. Listening and obeying God with regards to the mammogram. I wrote end of last year/ beginning of this year while in Clarens that I wanted to get better at listening and obeying. It’s not always a very conscious thing, but it is heeding the still, small voice. I still dread to think what would have happened if I hadn’t gone for my mammogram then. On a practical note, I’d still be in treatment now instead of enjoying the festive season but the treatment could have been worse (chemo and radiation, a more radical surgery, etc.).
5. We took a family holiday in Ballito. For the first time, my sister’s family and my father joined for some of those days and it was so lovely. My sister and I said afterwards that we are so glad we took that time away before everything changed.
6. I also got to go home (!) to PE for my father’s 70th birthday a week before radiation started. Great timing and also good to see both parents as I’m told that it’s been hard on them.

7. I read more than 125 books. I will edit this post and put in the final number once the year is up. 125 is at yesterday when I finished Christmas at O’Mara’s. It has been a great reading year without slumps and, as usual, the key is to keep many options available, and read in every format available. It also helped that the City of Johannesburg bought many good (current) Libby books this year. When your holds come in, you get on with it and read.
8. I wrote 24 minutes every weekend in 2024 for #write24in2024. For about 3 weekends, the writing was by hand in my line-a-day journal or in my bullet journal, but most of that time, it was writing on this blog or my newsletter. I am very, very proud of this achievement because it’s not easy to sustain a discipline for 52 Sundays! Result – my newsletter subscribers received more than 12 monthly newsletters. Yay!
9.  Some aspects of work went very well. I can’t give any particulars, of course, but I am happy with almost everything from this year. I can share this – I felt really supported by having good work friends this year.
10. I put on a list to have 24 fun nights. What counts? Actual different things done and nights away. At the end of December, we’ll have had 14 nights away in total, and I had an additional 6 fun nights out with friends. 20 out of 24 is great post-pandemic since I only go to gym these days and do nothing else that is fun.
11. I wrote about my 50 gifts project which ended up at 55 gifts. It was so, so, so fun and I have carried on looking for places to give instead of receive from this year’s birthday in August too. This year I’m not aiming for a number but I am listing them. My favourite gift in this 50 – 51 year is that I chose to give a monthly donation to Thula Baby Project in Cape Town. I forgot that I’d donated last year and they wrote to ask for a once-off, so I said I’ll do better than that – let me give an amount monthly. Easy to set up and they can now count on my giving to help support mothers and babies in CT.

What worked for you this year? What went well?