Starting Slow

Starting Slow

New years always lead to huge motivation spikes amongst people. It’s a new beginning, a fresh start to do whatever you want, and most of the time, it’s the thing you have been procrastinating on for months or perhaps years. The most gym sign ups happen, why else would Planet Fitness be such a huge sponsor during the Time Square New Years’ Festivities. Most people have plans for what they want to do. I didn’t. I had goals that I wanted to hit but I never started a new thing consistently. I had an incredible 2024. I got the most done, my consistency was improved in every area of my life. Physically, mentally, school wise, financially. Everything went well and I would have to say it was the most productive year of my whole adult life. On the physical side, six months of consistent training ended by finishing a marathon in January of 2025. End of goal. The completion of that goal was incredible, I loved that day, one of my best. I even got a little emotional for that final mile, I finally showed my consistency, and I ran by that finish line with my family beside me.

I peaked in mid-January. What now? Combined with that and some busy weeks, I fell into a rut. With school, with work, with my relationships, every category took a hit. Even financially, an area where I was locked in had weekly transfers telling my money where to go. Car insurance and taxes hit me, and my money journey hit a hiccup. I even got greedy again and bought single stocks. Something I lost earlier on in my financial journey. Even exercise fell away again as I added five more pounds of the 25, I lost while training for my marathon.

Safe to say, I started slow. It’s the end of February now. Do I punt and say better luck next year? Get back on my social media and start scrolling away? Probably not optimal. I have goals that I want to hit. Who cares if I start slow, I can always work my way back.

How do I right the ship?

Financial

I put a pause in my investments, all of them other than 401(k) and HSA. Those are work deductions so I don’t want to go through pausing that. Due to my emergency fund being hit, I need to focus on filling it back up, quicker than investments. This is the first time in well over a year that my savings got touched. I have also never paid taxes before, and also my car insurance went up the same month. I could have waited to pay taxes surely, but the goal is to have it filled back up hopefully in three months. In a rapid kind of way. I need to get that padding back. I also paid for two vacations this month. Those would have been easily paid but the taxes hit hard. I paid six months of car insurance so that won’t bother me while I get my funds back in. This might lead to a large delay in being able to max out my Roth IRA and push back other savings goals. Luckily, I have 13 months left to max out my Roth IRA. First things first is to get back to having a thicker emergency fund.

Physically

This was such a good habit that fell off after the large goal. I don’t have anything to train for. So why bother go out and run just for health reasons. Stupid I know, but we are all lazy creatures fighting with our logical brain. For the last week or two, life has calmed back down and I have been able to exercise more consistently. I have enjoyed running, and my girlfriend has joined me as well so that has been energizing. I had a physical goal to enter a pickleball tournament but with how far away the pickleball courts are from me, it is hard to get to the courts. Will ramp up training during a training period similar to my marathon training. It would make much more sense as I will hopefully be closer to the courts to train harder. I just need daily workouts and walks at work as I used to have up until the beginning of the year really shook my routine all around.

Mentally

I had to fight through anxiety in all areas of my life in 2024, it made some really hard days throughout a quarter of the year. I got help, I did what I needed to do, I pushed myself to try and make myself better in terms of anxiety, I didn’t want to live with it forever. So, I did, I was able to minimize anxiety and now I have the confidence in my skills to live with it forever. To live in harmony with it. One anxiety issue that has been bothering me is social anxiety. It is the next one to work on, another loving gift from my mother. Also, get away from doom-scrolling. There are an infinite number of things to do with my time. But I watch videos that mean nothing. Different movie scenes, funny mindless videos, all sorts of non-valuable things. And I do it. Constantly. I have played chess a little bit but getting beat so many times has me very unmotivated to play. I can’t lose when I doom scroll. Even though I am not accomplishing anything.

Career-Wise

In my job, I waited until the last minute to complete my tasks, doom scrolling on various social media apps. The items got done, but it would be slow and with my brain on a million other things, I did make more mistakes. I am now going to take a more active approach and get my work done as efficiently as possible. I was a bad employee for the last month, and I can own that. I was not the best version of myself, but I can change it.

Side Business?

This is something I always say I want to do, more than anything. I have had five years to do something, to figure out what I was good at and monetize it. This type of online hustle came to me during the COVID lockdown. That whole year actually. After COVID I worked at the post office and my time was not my time. I was trading ALL my time for dollars. Couldn’t make plans. Couldn’t go to college. I wake up, work, eat dinner, and sleep. For typically six days a week. Several weeks I wouldn’t even get an off day. 150-hour paychecks weren’t uncommon. I missed out on trips, missed out on events, missed out on life. I dreamed of the day where I could be in charge of my own schedule. It has been five years, different hustles/projects have come and went. I would burn myself out, get bored, and really just have no idea what I was doing. I made shit and expected people to pay me for it. In 2024, I finally hit some consistency, I knew what I wanted and did it consistently but not in a way for people to actually see it. I struggled with this. I STRUGGLE with this. Scared to show myself in front of the world. People are mean. What if I look like a failure. It is easier to stay in my comfort zone. Never post, never try to work on it at all. I am looking into how to stay consistent with posting, hopefully will draw up a posting schedule and hoping it becomes second nature. Working on it, I am still trying to see which motivation/tactic could help me the most. I wanted this year to be the year where I could finally do it.

I have several goals to fight through this year. I have entered a better case of motivation this month, I will toss the first month and a half as a mulligan. Get right back to it.