I didn’t reach any of the goals I set for 2024. None of them. I earned less than any other year. I didn’t get any fitter and I gained another 10 pounds or so. I didn’t launch my next book like I’d planned and I didn’t reach any great numerical success with my first book either. I could look at those things and call 2024 a failure, but it isn’t. It is nothing close to a failure. I had major wins in 2024. They just happened internally and they aren’t the things the world tells me I should celebrate.
I don’t set goals for the hit of checking off a box or so I can prove to someone else that I am a success. I want the things I want because they represent a fulfilled, energetic, rich, meaningful, life. Working on them is the point.
What 2024 taught me is that all the tangible goals are irrelevant without my health. This divorce process and trying to parent two traumatized children through it, has caused a lot of extreme stress. In 2021, I came down with Bell’s Palsy as a result and that marked the beginning of setting some hard boundaries in my work and relationships and focusing on stress management. Even with all I do for both, it hasn’t been enough to offset the stressors. I have been operating through some major burnout ever since and it has destroyed my earning ability and my mental and physical health.
By December 2023, when I got full custody of both kids, my body crashed and crashed hard. It was really disorienting and scary to not be able to do the things I really needed to do. I am the only source of income here and that’s a lot of pressure to perform. Pushing through was no longer an option, though. No matter what my bank account said, I couldn’t work. Quieting my panic was the only thing I could focus on that was in my control. Recovering from burnout and helping my children recover from what they’d been through, was the only goal I had capacity to work on. Rest and working to quiet my anxiety, was what was required to meet it. All other goals went out the window.
I took two months off last winter and went on income support. It was hard on my ego, but it was absolutely what I needed to do for my health. Resting wasn’t something I was good at. I also knew it was the only way out of burnout, so I forced myself to do it like exposure therapy. I napped a lot. I sat and looked at the water a lot. I wrote a lot. I let myself cry a lot. I wore comfy, cozy things most of the time. I drank a lot of tea and hot chocolate and I took a lot of baths. I reminded myself a thousand times a day that rest isn’t lazy and that it was temporary. Every night I’d go to bed thankful my kids were safe and praying that I’d wake up the next day with a working brain. Those two thoughts were what kept me going.
Those months felt like an eternity, but it was also where I came to deeply understand that my worth isn’t tied to what I do. I’m a good person when I’m working. I’m a good person when I’m not. I’m a good person when I’m broke. I’m a good person when I’m not. I deserve to treat myself with kindness, no matter which it is. In 2024, I worked the least I ever have. I’m also really, really proud of that.
Taking all that major rest, allowed my brain to start working again after burnout completely fried it. This time last year, I really thought I’d have to find a new career because taxes were so impossible to focus on. I could barely add two numbers together, that’s how severe the burnout was and it was really scary to be so out of control of my own mind. I am so glad to be able to do the work I love to do again. I’m still doing it in small measures right now, but I am slowly increasing it and my bank account is so, so happy about it.
I got approved for legal aid in 2024 too, so now this long, drawn-out, bullshit, legal process isn’t costing me a fortune either. It’s hard to even describe what a financial win that is, after what it’s cost me so far! My ex doesn’t impact my finances anymore after 15 years of him wrecking them and that is monumental. It is a financial win, but it is also cutting energetic chords with him. That is even better. He is irrelevant to my finances and he is irrelevant to our wellness. I am making sure of it.
I’ve carried a lot of shame about my debt and income. Looking back now, I don’t regret any of the financial decisions I made. Not one. I did what I needed to do. Protecting my kids and rebuilding our health, had to come first. I even took a holiday this past summer, despite my tight financial situation. I’m so glad I did it. I didn’t even know how desperately I needed it until I went. Balancing my own mental health while being a full-time parent is some hard shit. I always have to care about what those kids need and make sure they get it. Four days of not having to think about it, was really incredible for my mental health. That trip helped me feel like a human again and like there was hope for the future. There’s no dollar value to place on that.
My income and debt numbers are nothing to brag about, but they are now headed in the right direction. I’m glad I put finances second to my recovery though. It needed to be. As a result, my body and I became friends this year after a lifetime of feeling like it was my enemy. Instead of being mad at myself for being tired, I took a nap. I’d substantially cut back drinking over the last few years, but this year I pretty much completely quit drinking because it was hurting my sleep and hurting my body. I don’t miss drinking at all. Instead of being mad at my trauma responses, I learned to accept them more quickly and let them teach me what they were there to teach me. Instead of pumping my body with caffeine to force my body to be more productive, I stopped and let it do nothing. I’ve practiced showing this body that I care for it, because I knew it was the only way to soothe burnout enough to get my body to do what I needed it to. By doing the physical and mental acts of caring for my body so consistently, I actually started to genuinely care for my body. I feel grateful for my body and its sensitiveness, now. It’s been a beautiful and unexpected transformation.
Learning to be kind to my body through burnout has had many ripple effects. When I was in junior high and high school, I bordered on anorexia. My goal was to be thinner and food was mainly to stop hunger growls. Those were the worst years, but my relationship to food has never been great. This year I’ve started to look at food from a nourishment perspective and it’s the start of some deep, deep healing for me around food. I can’t wait to see where this one goes in 2025.
I got a new family doctor this year too and I’ve been talking to him about the state of my mental health and where it’s been. It was really hard to admit how badly I’ve been struggling, but saying it out loud and having it received so well, has been so healing. There’s nothing wrong with me for being impacted by my past trauma, or by my children being abused by their dad during this divorce, or any of the other things that have happened. There is nothing wrong with me. My body is responding in a completely expected way. It is such a relief to view my struggles like this after years of feeling weak or like there’s something defective about me for not being able to do what other people seem to do so easily. I’m now medicated for ADHD too, which has been absolutely life-changing! I’ve started meds for anxiety too, but the jury is still out on that one. Either way, I’m really, really proud of myself for starting the conversation. It is long over-due. My health is in an entirely different place than it was a year ago and I’m really proud of all the things I did and didn’t do to create that.
I spent a lot of time alone this year as a result of burnout too. I couldn’t bring myself to care about what other people thought of me when I did socialize either. I quit caring how I looked. I quit wearing makeup. I quit putting on a smile when it wasn’t genuine. I quit always responding fine, when people asked how I was and started responding more honestly more often. I quit spending time with people that felt hard to spend time with. I quit biting my tongue so much. I quit laughing at bad jokes. I quit wearing real pants and bras too for the most part. I went so far down the ‘I don’t care what people think’ track that I accidentally fell into self-confidence. I am the most authentically expressed that I have ever been and it is so much less exhausting. I don’t know how I ever operated differently than this. Maybe it’s turning 40, maybe it’s perimenopause, and maybe it’s burnout. Either way, it’s awesome to genuinely care a whole lot less about how the peanut gallery perceives me. It is so freeing.
The friendships I created in 2024 are next level. I self-isolated hard and I processed a lot of old trauma this year. The people who were capable of meeting me where I was and who were happy to be there, are the warmest, most wonderful souls I could ever imagine. I let my hurt be heard. I let myself feel appreciated by them this year. I let myself be helped. I let myself be complimented. I let myself be checked up on. I let myself be pursued. These are massive wins for me. My friendships are fewer, but they are infinitely richer.
I hardly dated at all in 2024. I self-isolated so hard that I accidently ended up loving my own company so much that I lost all anxiety about finding a partner. I don’t have any interest in dating men who don’t enrich my life the way that the women I know do. I refuse to settle for sub-par intimate relationships, just for the benefit of sleeping with them. Again, my romantic life from the outside looks to be the worst it’s ever been, but it’s really the basis for the best.
I feel like I’m about to be sling-shotted forward honestly. 2024 took me away from most people. It took me backwards in physical health. It took me backwards in financial health. I can now see how I needed to go backwards. I needed to let go the weight I was carrying. I needed to shed the masks I was wearing. I needed to deal with the past, because the past was still present. I needed to look at the reality of what was preventing me from going where I want to go. I needed to learn to ask for help. 2024 was not a year of physical, outwardly rewards. It was the year of letting go attachments to those, actually, and it was the year of deep, deep inner work. That deep inner work will see me flying high and going far. I’m certain of it.
2025 will be the year my next book launches and is a wild success on all counts. It will be the year my bank account gets nice and fat. It will be the year my physical body thrives along with my relationship to it. I’m fairly certain the end to this ridiculous legal process is going to happen in 2025 too and I’ll finally be divorced. I also know I will be ok if none of those things happen. I will love me and take care of me anyway. That is what 2024 taught me. That is a powerful lesson.
What has 2024 taught you? There’s big realizations waiting in the reflection, I’m certain. Feel free to tell me about it. I’d love to hear it.
2025 is bringing amazing new things for those brave enough to let go of what’s not working. I’m certain of it.
Amazing read! You always inspire me!
Thanks for sharing!