Published February 2025 — updated with closing reflections, January 2026
Looking Back at 2024 First
Before I could map out where I wanted to go, I had to be honest about where I’d been.
2024 had some real wins buried in it. My job kept me on my feet — I was averaging around 12,000 steps a shift, which I never would have predicted. I made a genuine effort to get better sleep, sticking to a more consistent bedtime and actually noticing the difference when I did. I kept reading, mostly for blog research, but it was still something. And after dealing with technical headaches for most of the year, the blog finally started running the way it was supposed to.
But I also fell short in ways I didn’t want to brush past. Finances got away from me — unexpected expenses hit and I wasn’t prepared. Decluttering kept getting bumped down the list until it basically disappeared. I never started painting or playing music the way I’d told myself I would. The floors I bought for the house remodel sat in boxes. Self-care was the first thing I dropped every time I felt overwhelmed, which was often. I didn’t build any real workout structure outside of steps at work. YouTube never got off the ground. And my social media posting was scattered at best.
That’s an honest accounting. I’m not beating myself up over it — 2024 had things in it I didn’t see coming. But writing it all out helped me figure out what I actually wanted 2025 to look like.
My 2025 Focus Areas: Building a Level 10 Life
Reflecting on 2024 helped me pinpoint where I need to focus more—or in some cases, start from scratch. It’s already been a rocky start to the new year, and I feel like I’m climbing out of a hole. Below are my top 10 focus areas for 2025. If you haven’t followed me before, I’m still working toward a Level 10 Life, and many of these goals tie into that.
1. Healthspan & Lifespan
This one sat at the top of the list for a reason. I didn’t just want to add years — I wanted the years to mean something. Better nutrition, more intentional movement, regular check-ups, and actually learning about what longevity looks like in practice rather than just reading headlines about it.
(On a personal note, at the time I wrote this, I was dealing with some heart concerns and had a heart cath scheduled. What came after that changed the whole year. If you want the full story, you can read it [here — link to bypass post].)
2. Time Management
I used to be good at this. Genuinely good — scheduling, blocking time, knowing where my hours were going. Somewhere along the way I lost that. In 2025 I wanted to get it back. Not with some complicated system, just with honesty about how I was actually spending my days versus how I wanted to be spending them.
3. Habits to Quit & Habits to Start
I’d gotten into some patterns I wasn’t proud of. Doomscrolling before bed. Reaching for my phone first thing in the morning. Letting the day happen to me instead of deciding what I wanted it to look like. I wanted to replace some of that with things that actually helped — journaling, a few minutes of quiet in the morning, being more deliberate about what I let into my head.
4. Morning & Evening Routines
Related to habits, but bigger in scope. I’ve always believed that how you start and end a day shapes everything in between. I wanted to build routines I could actually stick to — not elaborate multi-hour rituals, just a consistent structure that made mornings feel less chaotic and evenings feel more like wind-down than collapse.
5. Self-Care
I used to treat self-care like it was optional. Something I’d get to after everything else was handled. 2024 taught me pretty clearly what happens when I keep doing that — I run down, get overwhelmed, and drop everything at once. I wanted to stop treating rest and recovery like a reward and start treating them like maintenance.
6. Finances
This one needed real work. I wanted to build an actual budgeting system — not a spreadsheet I’d open twice and forget about, but something I’d actually use. I also wanted to get more realistic about preparing for unexpected costs, because 2024 showed me what it looks like when I’m not.
7. Decluttering & Organization
My space affects my head more than I used to admit. When the house is cluttered, I feel cluttered. I kept putting off the kind of systematic go-through that would actually make a difference. This year I wanted to commit to it for real — closets, the garage, the workspace, all of it.
8. The House Remodel & Aging in Place
I already had flooring sitting in boxes. The remodel had been stalled for too long, and the budget wasn’t going to allow for much more than getting that floor down. But I wanted to start thinking longer-term too — not just about what looks good now, but about what makes the house workable as I get older. Aging in place is something I’ve been thinking about more seriously, and the house needed to reflect that eventually.
9. Hobbies & Creative Pursuits
2024 was a year where the creative stuff never made it off the list. Painting. Music. Things I kept saying I’d get to. I didn’t want another year of that. Not because hobbies are some productivity goal to optimize — but because I genuinely missed having something that was just for me, with no audience and no output required.
10. Bucket List & “60 Before 60”
I’ve kept a running list for years of things I want to do before I turn 60. Some of them are big. Some are smaller than you’d expect. In 2025 I wanted to actually look at that list, take it seriously, and start making real moves toward a few of them instead of just letting them age on a page somewhere.
How It Actually Went
I’m writing this closing section in January 2026, and I’ll be honest — 2025 didn’t go the way I planned. Not even close.
The heart situation I mentioned in the healthspan section turned into something much bigger. Triple bypass surgery. Recovery. Cardiac rehab. A stretch of months where most of these ten focus areas got set aside entirely while I just focused on getting through it.
Some of that list mattered a lot more than I expected. Some of it faded into the background and stayed there. And a few things I never put on the list became the most important parts of the year.
I wrote about all of it. If you want to follow that thread, start with [My Unexpected Journey to Triple Bypass Surgery — link] and then read [My 2026 — link] to see where things stand now.
Looking back at this post, I don’t regret writing it. I think there’s something worth keeping in the act of sitting down at the start of a year and saying — here’s what I’m working on, here’s where I fell short, here’s where I want to go. Even when the year breaks the plan entirely.
Maybe especially then.
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