EoY Review: 2024 was the Hard Reset I’ve never thought I needed

To summarise, 2024 was half resting and half grinding.

This year I am trying to build my intuition to navigate life without frequent journaling. More like freestyling it. The beginning of 2024 was a bit bumpy, I did not know what to envision how this year was going to be.

Using money to set myself for success

This year is the longest I’ve ever been unemployed. I feel so grateful that I chose to enrol to a gym for about a year before.

I am reminded of a lesson I used to learn from a course for decision-making: setting a trapwire. The course was named Decision by Design and quite expensive at that time I purchased it due to my country’s low currency parity to dollars. But I think that’s why I remember it.

In that course, setting a trapwire means that you take preemptive step before facing a situation that you know will make you go to the other direction from what you initially set. In my case, I knew that being unemployed for a long time would expose me to the risk of being rejected. Being rejected multiple times might lead me to be a bitter person that is pessimistic. No one wants to hangout with a pessimistic person, right? So how might we set something that can make me have a good mindset to start the day despite experiencing rejections multiple times from the jobs I applied?

The answer was gym subscription with a personal trainer.

Even though I did not technically write down my yearly goal as to be a gymrat this year, nor setting a metric that I have to go to the gym 3x a week for the entire year, I kinda did it anyway. What’s different this time?

The difference was: I had money to spend.

By subscribing not only to the gym access, but also to have a personal trainer/coach, I set myself up for showing up to the gym. Preemptively, I set a commitment to myself by paying these in advance. It feels so great to realise how much money can help me solve a problem and use it accordingly. Lasmi 3 years ago would not consider this as a solution because simply she lacked of it.

Although one can argue that I still need the motivation to show up to the gym despite hiring the coach, I think for me it makes the need for having a big motivation less significant.

Learned to be patient

Absurdly, getting employed is a matter of luck

Getting a job is a matter of luck. No matter how competent you are, how stellar your CV is, in the end of the day, luck will be the most determining factor of whether you are getting the job. I’m reminded of this Veritasium’s video that basically says, when the jobs you’re applying for requires everyone to be highly competent and you have such a similar level of high competence from the candidates (all highly competent), the ones getting hired are the ones with a slightly better luck.

I experienced this firsthand when I had to wait for about 7 months being unemployed. It was about 287 jobs that I applied to and either not getting any information back or straightforwardly rejected my application. I did not change anything on my CV. But then suddenly, starting from September, I was on a roll. Good news, I was getting interview invites at 4 different jobs!

The first one was not a hit. It’s because they ghosted me after doing three interviews with a take home project. Such a waste of time. But it’s alright, probably this was due to their company’s situation; the company was not doing good, the news said.

The second one was actually the job that I have always wanted since learning about behavioural science, which I got the offer from (wow!), but somehow makes more sense to reject. I know, sounds crazy, but I trusted my instincts, and glad I did because of this third one: a job abroad.

The third one was actually a PhD that is treated like a work, but I need to move 10.547 km away from the current city I am living at. Which I am excitedly taking and looking forward to!

The fourth one is job where I can work from anywhere and with a decent salary with a manager I really enjoyed working with. I chose to pursue it in a mindset that I will terminate it after I settle my move to do my PhD, but then somehow I ended up prolonging the contract by transforming it into a part-time job.

Funny thing is, I did not do anything differently in the way I present myself on my CV nor did I enrol myself into a program to boost my credibility. I merely increased my surface of being lucky by applying to more jobs from different portals.

The job I ended up with were not posted on a job portal, but I found it through a Linkedin post. The post was not even about the job, it’s someone promoting their company of being an employee of record to employ someone from Indonesia abroad. I submitted my CV for a recruitment database and then one of them reached me out about this work opportunity. The PhD I am getting also was not something I actively found by myself. The advert was promoted by my former supervisor and then I got through the entire application process.

Sometimes things do fall into place. You just got to be patient about it.

Being patient: losing the weight and my old identity

Talking about patience, I learned a lot about it this year trying to lose weight. Especially from fat. I want to be the healthier version of me.

This year, I became more aware of how my bodyweight has been increasing since I was in the UK. Partly, it was because of bad fueling when I was training for my marathon. I did not eat enough protein and was constantly hungry. Instead of eating a full meal with whole foods, I resorted to snacking high-carbs items like rice crackers or oat cakes. As a result, I was at 83kg, the heaviest I had ever been. I was about 73 when I went to the UK, so that’s an increase of 10 kilos!

I knew I had it in me to reduce this weight and become the fitter version of myself. I want to be able to be athletic and feel good about myself when looking at my reflection in the mirror.

The biggest hurdle to do it, for me, was the fear that this is going to be that Yo-yo Diet where I would need to be constantly in fear of gaining my weight back. I feared that I would have to be constantly aware of what I am eating and how much and not enjoying life. I feared that I could not enjoy food as a recreational activity to make me feel good and destress myself. Food was one of my big source of happiness.

The journey to weightloss starts from shifting the mindset from feeling in fear to excitedness. Throughout the process, I of course still did a lot of stuffs more than shifting mindset. I did journal my food intake, how much calories I was eating, whether I meet my protein goal per day or not, and exercised regularly. The new insight is: throughout the process, I changed. I became the person that seeks healthier food choices and a person that is so excited to exercise. What I was worried about was unproven. It did become easier the longer I stayed on the course.

This is a reminder to you and myself that whenever we set a big goal, we also have to take into account that we will also change our identity in the process. We will adapt to the circumstances and be more efficient in reaching the goal we set. Things will fall into place. The healthier version of me is not going to be addicted to high-carbs food snacking.

This chart shows my weight progress throughout the 10 month in which I lost about 15kgs. In the small scale, I only lost 1.5kgs per month, but in the grander scheme of things, my weight ranges in the 60s now!

Doing more by setting up a system

So how many times did I exercise per week to realise that bodyweight goal?

I did 5 times a week exercises. Three times weightlifting at the gym and two times cardio by swimming or running or pilates.

“That sounds unrealistically intense!” is going to be the response of my 25-year old self if I told her that. Of course. Because at that moment, I had other priorities to attend to, like studying for my master’s. However, I did finish my first ever marathon when doing that. “Hmm.. so this is just a rendition of what I did before but for a different goal.”

When I set a system that automatically decides what I should be doing everyday to reach a goal, 5x a week of exercise sounds realistic. I was doing 3x a week runs on top of studying at that time. But in 2024, I was not working full-time, so 5x a week makes sense.

I set up in my Google Calendar that I get to go to the gym every Mon, Wed, Fri at 8am. Eat the frog. Do the most difficult task the first thing in the morning.

I realised how confident I was after a hard day at the gym. I feel like killing two birds with one stone. For sure I’ll be keeping this routine forever.

At my peakest, I even did a workout everyday. Interestingly, I could do hard things like this when I set up a system.

Starting with a blank canvas: setting intention to my routine

This year, I did not have a routine being set up for me since I did not work full-time most of the time. I started with a somewhat blank canvas and I am glad that I painted the year with intention and it shows.

I get to set up my morning routine to be working out at the gym. Because of the fully-remote work I accepted earlier, I get to intentionally invite my friends to hangout with me instead of relying on the work colleague being so available to me that I didn’t get to initiate.

Maybe for once, I needed this hard reset on me to start focusing on how I want to be. Without the common structure provided by work expectations and norms, I get to experiment how I want my life to be.

Instead of starting from what I can fit to the leftover hours from working full time, I had the time to start from scratch on ideating what my routine looks like. It feels scary at first, but freeing once I know which thing to set up. I am so glad I did it right.

Closing thoughts: maybe things do fall into place

I am grateful for 2024 that it taught me to rest, be patient, and set up my own routine with intent. It prepares me to be ready to whatever comes my way and be happy in my own journey. Things could fall into place. Things were falling into place. A little bit late, but still, cheers to what’s to come in 2025! 🍻

Time no longer passes by
I’ve found my way I’m living life, oh yeah
I have purpose I have changed
Life is falling into place
Life is beautiful, life is beautiful

Lasmi's Thoughts