2023 has had its ups and downs, with my businesses and also within my personal life. However, I have found myself to be overall more positive this year, which has taken a conscious effort and was always something I was terrible at. This year, I want to take this to the next level. Here are my goals for 2024:

My First Goal for 2024 – Make a Personal Website

I have/have had many interests and hobbies in my life so far. It started with DJing at uni which was fully self-taught as I just fell in love with the art form. Finding songs that go together and seamlessly blending them together, or better still, find songs that totally shouldn’t work and find a way for them to merge.

One mix I remember doing a lot is KOAN Sound – Mr. Brown underneath (which is a bass heavy glitch-hop style track with a wild and weighty modulating synth) with the acapella of Eminem – The Real Slim Shady coming through on Top. The BPM (beats per minute) matched close enough to make it work albeit with a few nudges of the jog wheel to keep it in time but in every other way those two songs should not go together.

DJing led me to learn how to produce my own music. Again, this was self-taught. I would spend hours tinkering away making different drum beats, synths and bass sounds until an idea came through that I could arrange into a full track. These were mostly instrumental as is most of the music I enjoy but one of my favourites is actually one of my earlier productions which was made during my last year at university, a bootleg of Justin Timberlake’s LoveStoned / I Think She Knows Interlude.

At university, I studied graphic design. It was always a toss-up between music and design. I loved D.T. at school and loved building things that first appeared as a mere thought in my head. I also loved music. I started playing the violin at age 7 and the trombone at age 8, studied music at GCSE and music technology at A-Level. In the end, I went down the design route but that’s a story for another day.

Then came photography. I found myself capturing a moment or seeing some obscure angle or viewpoint that others would just walk by. It could be something as simple as rivets on a building, seeing a view through a crack in a brick or even just a flight of stairs. It was my way of proverbially smelling the roses, seeing the fascinating in the everyday and mundane.

I have realised that everything I have ever created is in a different place online. My design work is on Behance, my music and mixes are on Soundcloud, my photography is on Instagram, the videos I have created for my businesses are on YouTube and my business has its own website.

So after watching many Ali Abdaal videos, I thought it was about time for me to ‘Show Your Work‘ and finally get around to making my own site where everything can live in one place on the internet. If you’re looking for it, you’re on it right now!

My Second Goal for 2024 – Read 9 Books

In 2023 I set myself the goal of reading 8 books. This includes physical books and audiobooks. I managed to meet this goal just a couple of weeks ago. I have never been a big reader but in the last few years, I have actively told myself that I am a reader and identified with that notion. Now I can say with confidence I am someone who reads regularly.

One book I will be reading in 2024 is The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday. The book has 366 stoic quotes and thoughts, one per page, one for each day of the year. 2024 is a good year to do this as it’s a leap year! So that’s one of the 9 books ticked off by reading a short page per day.

I enjoy mostly ‘self-help’ books, business books and autobiographies. I rarely read fiction, although I will be including more fiction books in my list this year. These usually fall into the dystopian category.

Other books on my list for the year so far are Same As Ever by Morgan Housel (following on from Psychology of Money which I read last year), Mathew Perry’s Autobiography and Feel Good Productivity by Ali Abdaal. The other four books are yet to be decided.

I track all of my reading using GoodReads. You can see what I’ve been reading as well as my yearly reading challenges here.

My Third Goal for 2024 – Start Therapy

This is something I have put off for literally the whole of 2023. Without going into too much detail, I didn’t have the easiest childhood. I think in some ways this has affected my ability to have relationships. I’ve subconsciously been avoiding them maybe even self-sabotaging.

I have done a lot of self-work on my own by learning about personality types using the Enneagram System, Myers-Briggs (click here to find out your MB personality type) and Astrology but I think I need to delve deeper.

The point is I’m not sure and I think I’m ready to unpack all of this, get to the route of the problem and start to move forward. Wish me luck!

My Fourth Goal for 2024 – Start a Personal YouTube Channel

For the past 2 or 3 years I’ve been running a YouTube channel for my business. I’ve found I have been able to use filming and editing as a creative outlet as I haven’t been using DJing and music production as an outlet for a couple of years now. My focus pretty much entirely goes on the businesses.

I’m not an expert at YouTube, but I’m also not a noob. I’ve gotten a lot better at editing, lighting, framing, scripting etc. I think talking to the camera is the piece that needs the most work although it is 100 times better than it was when I first started.

This seems as scary as therapy somehow and I guess in some ways it’s pretty similar. The issue will be finding the time to keep on top of another channel as well as my current one, the businesses and this new blog.

My Fifth Goal for 2024 – Journal More

On January 1st 2023 I started Steven Barlett’s The Diary. The diary comprises 12 weeks, with one entry per day. At the end of each week, you input your scores across 4 areas; health, finance, work and relationships. You then scan a QR code and are presented with 3 videos based on your score. It’s sold as ‘a diary that talks back to you’.

It was good, although the videos weren’t always relevant to my situation. The best thing it did for me was keep me consistent with an entry a day for 3 months. There were days that I missed but I filled those in a day or two later once I’d got back to making an entry. I did find that things in my life started to fall into place. Seemingly unrelated things such as being introduced to someone and going on dates, finances were looking better as were the businesses. I can’t explain it but it worked.

Once I finished the 12 weeks I took a little break and later in the year bought a blank Moleskin notebook to do some unprompted journaling. I did this almost every day at first but the frequency declined.

I have now bought MindJournal which I will be starting on January 1st.

Those are my five personal goals for 2024. I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this list on top of all of the trials and tribulations that come with running a business never mind personal life but there it is in black and white.

Hopefully laying out my goals for the year like this will help me to achieve them and maybe even provide some inspiration or ideas for anyone who reads this, the first of my blogs. I hope 2024 is a good year for you all.