Year in review: 2024
#Year in review
I’d started writing this on the first day of the new year, as has been my tradition since 2020, but my ceiling started leaking. I’m really hoping that it isn’t a harbinger of things to come in 2025.
Onward!
What went well
Strength: If you know me, you know I’ve struggled with fitness my entire life: issues with my lower back, my lungs, a self-imposed limiting belief that I’m “just not athletic”.
But with great aplomb (and a drum roll, please): I lost ~13% of myself in 2024! My InBody scale tells me nearly all of it was fat loss, and I’m not about to argue with it.
This was a combination of nutrition, the 160 workouts I did — approximately one workout every 2.28 days — and physical therapy exercises for my back, which left me feeling lighter and stronger than ever.
A major breakthrough was finally cracking the cardio code: daily treadmill walks for 45 minutes — while reading on my Kindle (important! I look forward to these treadmill sessions because of this).
On the food intake end, my concept of *minimal viable protein* served me well for days that are both typical, and not (traveling, for example).
Lastly, I addressed loose ends (i.e. fixing my infected implant, getting a cyst on my scalp removed, being better at skincare and sunscreen application, etc etc.)
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Alignment: This has been a transformative year internally. A recurring theme in past yearly reviews had been about work, and how much that had vexed me. Those alone should’ve raised alarm bells, but I ignored them, year after year.
In the second half of the year, something clicked: it wasn’t finding another job in the corporate world, nor was it climbing the ladder and losing even more of myself in the process.
Instead, I started examining what my skills (design, operations, strategy) could create impact, beyond the confines of corporate structures.
That’s when the idea of turning the design process inward came, using it to fuel personal development and growth. From this emerged the concept of being a *full stack being*, centered on building strength, thinking, alignment, connection and knowledge.
This shift transformed my focus from merely staying afloat as a design leader in a consultancy, to writing and using design as a vehicle for exploration and experimentation. It’s a move beyond delivering user flows, screens, and slide after slide of a “UX strategy” destined to be dismissed.
(Can you feel my burnout and jadedness of the craft?)
So far, I’ve launched a newsletter, and an Instagram exploring this concept.
But more on these in the months ahead :)
New skills: Like my GMAT exam on the day before a year-end trip last year, 2024 repeated that pattern with my driving license (though it was planned to be earlier in November, but I had failed the first attempt). I’m now able to legally terrorize the streets!
I also took on side quests that I hadn’t planned on, with skiing, learning Spanish, and playing chess as my top three highlights of skills acquired. They weren’t part of a grand plan, but they brought me joy and are stark reminders that staying curious and open are my core values.
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More traveling: I zipped around a fair bit: Germany, Austria, The Philippines, The UK, France, Malaysia, then finally to China. It’s a cliche, but I truly do love it.
What could’ve gone better
Improving focus and reducing screen time: This isn’t an uncommon issue amongst the chronically online. I found myself reaching for my phone, doom scrolling through social media and Reddit, even though I *know* I should be doing anything else instead.
Case in point: I just wasted 15 minutes scrolling through YouTube shorts. YouTube shorts! How did I even get there?!
Screen time was abysmal; huge chunks of hours without me even realizing it. I’ve put in a few guardrails, like using greyscale mode and setting time limits, but it’s clear I ned more deliberate approaches.
The lack of focus connects to a larger problem: avoiding discomfort and boredom. Recognizing it is half the battle (I hope!) and now it’ll be about sitting with these feelings and finding alternatives.
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Speed in decision making: A pattern of overthinking and analysis paralysis underpins this, and ends up with me wasting time by not moving forward and getting stuck in loops.
Or maybe it’s the perfectionist streak in me, with unrealistic expectations of how fast things should move. We’ll unpack this a lot more in 2025, I hope!
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Managing anxiety more effectively: I am, by default, wrought with anxiety. It’s basically background noise to me now. I’ve been trying all the usual tricks — meditating, journaling, working out — but there is a baseline that I return to.
Then there were the things I was excessively anxious about: the layoffs in the company, how my teammates were coping, my financial situation in the case that it drops on me.
But I learned an important lesson here: no amount of anxiety makes any difference to anything that is going to happen. Instead, I want to try and shift my focus on the things that are going to move the needle, and converting that into something constructive instead.
Themes from my gratitude journal
Having the time and space to think and experiment
Traveling and exploring new places
The nephews being happy; spending time with them
Doing new things that scare me
Being excited about life again
Doing things that brought joy
What I want to do in 2025
Strength
Feel lighter and more energetic
Thinking
Let go of the scarcity mindset and internalize that “investing in yourself is not a waste”
Reduce phone usage as default for boredom
Alignment
Build the full stack life in public
Redefine what good enough work and great work look like outside the corporate world
Connection
More solo traveling
Knowledge
Consistently learn how to play the guitar
Leave space for side quests
I’m hopeful that the theme of 2025 is one of exploration, and giving myself permission to wander off the main path of conventions and expectations.
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