2024 Life Lessons: Love, Health, and Success

At the end of every “Year in Review” mega-post, I compile a list of all the major Life Lessons I’ve learned that year. A couple years ago, I started the tradition of separating this into a separate post from the main 2024 Year In Review post.

In compiling these lessons, I noticed they fell into 3 major categories. I have grouped them accordingly:

• Love & Relationships
• Success & Happiness
• Health & Well-Being

Feel free to skip to the sections most interesting or relevant to you. Or just go through them all if you’re feeling in the mood.

Love & Relationships

Being around family and those who love and care about you is very healing – Just an observation I made when visiting family for Thanksgiving. It’s so recharging, refreshing, and relaxing to be around people who truly understand you, care about you, and accept you as you are. The contrast is so obvious when you feel like you’re in a safe space devoid of judgment, which isn’t always prevalent within everyday life and many social circles. It’s beneficial to maximize the amount of time you spend with people who don’t judge you. We should try to find or cultivate as many of these groups as we can.

Focus on not OVERINVESTING in relationships, and simply match the energy that they put in – I learned this from a dating coach I follow on IG about this idea of “overinvesting” as one of the biggest turn-offs. But even in the context of relationships in general, this concept makes a lot of sense. When you overinvest in people, there’s a good chance that they won’t receive the love you’re giving. And then they won’t reciprocate your efforts to deepen the relationship because it was too much too fast for them. At this point, it’s easy to get hurt when you’re expecting some sort of reciprocation. Therefore, it’s best to not overinvest in relationships until they have deepened enough over time. This is shown when both sides have consistently proven through actions that the relationship is worth putting effort into.

Focus more on the people who also care about you deeply and equally – My own lesson learned this year was to spend MORE time and energy where you are loved and appreciated, and not where your efforts are taken for granted. As much as I want to just love people who I care about, sometimes it’ll backfire when you realize they don’t care about you the same way. Worse yet, it hurts even more when they act inconsistently to what they claim to believe or verbally say. I also realized that inconsistency aka lack of integrity made me trust these types of people less, and made me want to spend less time around them.

The root cause of relationship issues is usually the lack of boundaries – Many relationship conflicts I see (romantic, platonic, familial, etc) are caused directly by lack of boundaries. I highly recommend checking out my book summary for Boundaries by John Townsend & Henry Cloud, but I’ve seen so many instances of this in 2024. I figured it was important to bring this back as a healthy reminder to develop strong boundaries with those you care about. Stronger boundaries = stronger relationships.

Being vulnerable with others is a gift that benefits both sides  –  This was the biggest takeaway from having a handful of long talks with good people this year. I learned that opening up and being vulnerable with them was a good thing for both of us because we had the chance to connect deeply. They felt good because they felt like they were helping a friend out. When you care about someone, it’s truly a gift to be able to help them out. 

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Success & Happiness

Lead & inspire by example – If you want to encourage specific behavior in your team or the people around you, you have to lead by example. Model the behavior you want to see, especially if you are a leader in a team. Even though it may take a while (in some cases years), eventually, persistence over time will change the culture if you’re consistent and intentional.

Cut out people who lack integrity, or who don’t treat you with respect – This is in regards to people who gossip and act inconsistently (acting differently in front of you vs. behind your back). It’s always best for your own peace of mind to let go of these people as soon as possible. By the same token, trying to talk with people who don’t respect your time with their lack of communication will rob you of your peace. It’s best to just let go of these people and not try to invest in those who aren’t upfront with you in their communication.

You might not always get exactly what you want, but it’s important to appreciate the good things you have instead of always wishing you had more – It’s easier said than done. But all things considered, we should focus on what we have and be grateful because our situations could be much worse. In another reality, we could be wishing for the things we have now.

Don’t make mountains out of molehills. Stop procrastinating – Be proactive and tackle the challenge head-on so that you don’t torture yourself worrying about it. I’ve had so many instances this year where I procrastinated on a task or project. I spent so much time worrying about doing the thing. But once I eventually did it and got it over with, my misery was over. It felt like a huge burden was lifted. Reminder to myself to do the hard things first and early, so that I won’t make myself suffer unnecessarily.

Always do your best, but also detach from the result to preserve your peace – There were times this year when I worked hard for something, but it didn’t pan out as I expected. Even though the result was disappointing, I was at peace knowing I did my best. If I gave it a half-hearted effort, I would only be able to blame myself. A reminder that most of the results in life are out of our control. As long as we do our best and seek to improve each time, there’s nothing to be upset about.

The importance of intentional and consistent self-reflection to bring clarity to who you are – I’ve had a handful of good conversations this year (and in my podcast) about the importance of self-reflection to improve self-awareness. That improved self-awareness will help orient your compass and lead you toward your purpose. If you’re at a place in your life where your purpose isn’t clear yet, the first step is always to improve your self-awareness.

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Health & Well-Being

The power of disconnecting from social media and modern society – I’ve always wondered what it would be like to live as a monk surrounded by nature. As I’ve gotten older and felt the burdens of being hyper-connected online and the perils of social media, I’ve had this deep craving to disconnect from it all and find greater inner peace. When traveling to South Korea in September, we did a temple stay at a Korean Buddhist temple in the countryside. It was such an amazing experience doing all of the meditations and living like a monk for almost 2 days. It felt so nice to be in nature and focus on inner peace rather than all the pressures and comparisons that society forces upon us.

Focus on productivity earlier in the day – Perhaps this is different for different people depending on their energy cycles (morning larks vs. night owls). However, I found that the more I frontload my day with harder tasks while my mental energy and willpower are at their highest, it allowed me to take it easy and not be burdened with more demanding tasks later at night. I have a lot less guilt when most of my important tasks are accomplished earlier in the day, and I can simply relax and enjoy my night.

Accountability + discipline + delayed gratification – These were the main factors that allowed me to hit my goal of 145lbs / 7lbs loss in 30 days. It proved to me that I could achieve these goals when I set up my routine to run automatically. It is key to rely less on willpower and more on habits.

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Thank you 2024 for all the Lessons Learned

Like every year, I’m very appreciative that I’m blessed with another year to go through challenges and learn from them. Ideally, they’ll be new lessons each time and not the same ones I have to relearn. Either way, I hope that some of these are insightful to whoever may be reading this.

Cheers!