Monday Musings: What I Learned In 2024
In the early days of Project Vanity, I would often write year-end reports celebrating all the things I accomplished over the past 12 months. It was always such a joy to look back on my highlights and share them with this wonderful community. Now that I’m a little older (and hopefully wiser!), my perspective has shifted. These days, I measure the success of my year not just by achievements but by the hard-won lessons that have shaped me along the way. The older I am, the more I realize how harder it is to learn new things because of a natural resistance to change. It’s like when you play an RPG and the XP points required to level up become higher and higher! And so, here are the three things I learned in 2024.
In Perugia
First, I realized the importance of being crystal clear about the things I want, a lesson I owe to my friend Michelle. She showed me her vision boards, and it hit me: I had been approaching goal-setting like throwing mud at a wall, hoping something would stick. If I truly want to make something happen, I need to visualize it in detail, from start to finish, step by step. That clarity makes all the difference. I’ve always been a let’s-see-what-works kind of person but more than flexibility, it’s important to have a sense of certainty about the most important posts to hit to get to the end game.
Second, I finally honed the skill of asking truly interesting and interested questions. It’s something I’ve been working on for years, but I think I finally nailed it this time. There’s an art to asking the right questions, ones that make people feel heard and excited to share, without coming across as nosy. Small talk bores me, but conversations sparked by thoughtful questions? Those are gold. It’s even helped me enjoy social events more, which is a big win for an introvert like me.
Third, I learned how to talk myself out of bad moods. There are days when I fall into the spiral of “I’m not good enough,” “I’m not doing enough,” or “I’ll never achieve my goals.” But this year, I’ve become more aware of those moments and realized that I have the power to stop them. Not every negative thought reflects reality, and I’ve gotten better at distinguishing between what’s true and what’s just not.
These lessons have been hard-won but deeply transformative. I’ve struggled for years trying to understand myself and why I just can’t seem to move beyond my roadblocks. But learning these three things - and I mean, really internalizing them - well, it’s everything. They were worth everything I had to go through to get to them.
What did you learn this year?
