Fellow author Josh Langley recently published a blog post on why he isn’t setting any goals in 2024. Instead, he creating a list of what he wants to ‘show up’ for. In showing up, Josh says, ‘you’re willing to push through your fears, anxieties and doubts, to really be present in the experience – the whole experience and the whole process’.
I really like this (and I really like the rest of Josh’s post, which expands on the difference between goals and showing up, some tips on how to show up, and his own list for 2024). So, I thought I would frame my own list in this same spirit of ‘showing up’. Or, as another friend phrased it, what are the things I want to ‘step into’ this coming year?
In no particular order, I am choosing to show up for the following:
1. write everyday
2. finish drafting my memoir in the form of interlinked personal essays
3. submit three personal essays to journals and/or competitions
4. read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis in Italian, one paragraph at a time
5. visit my son, who now lives interstate (hopefully for Mother’s Day)
6. support my daughter through major surgery and lengthy recovery
7. create greater ‘margin’ to allow time to spend with family and friends more generally, and to ease a sense of overwhelm
8. listen to my own ‘inner teacher’ and embracing my own ideas
9. walk every day
10. start swimming again
11. regular yoga classes (which I consider to be my blood pressure medication)
12. plant a vegetable garden and keep it alive
13. mentoring (especially building into the creativity of young people I’ve met through 12 Buckets)
14. monthly counselling
15. submit proposals for two book reviews
16. oral history project
17. continue weekly piano lessons
18. learn 20 Noongar words (the First Nations language group where I live) and the eqivalent words in Yolgnu Matha (the First Nations language group where I grew up)
19. read a minimum of 25 books
20. attend a Courage & Renewal retreat (a weekend of deep reflection)
21. morning pages
22. a regular day of rest (permission to be unproductive)
23. play with poetry
24. finish PhD (part of which is my memoir; see #2)
Over to You
What are you choosing to show up for in 2024?
Woah, that’s a LOT to show up for! Sounds like a very creative, busy, and exciting year ahead. Excited to see your vegetable garden and read your poetry 🙂 Wishing your daughter and family all the best.
Thanks, Jake. Hopefully I have the wisdom to edit as needed if it ends up being too much. Maybe #24 should have been permission to cross some off the list! However, I’m hoping that some will encourage me to slow down and be in the moment, rather than being overwhelming.