I never wrote a public year review and I guess this is it. I now join the millions discussing their year as a symbolic attempt to find closure and recharge optimism for the coming year. I have to tell you, I had a good year.

In the year of our Lord, two thousand and twenty-four and bygones

Was 2024 all pretty? No. It in fact began pretty shitty, pardon my language throughout.

I have a confession. Throughout most of my life, I had never taken care of my physical and mental health. I was physically inactive and dismissed most of my own feelings. I would not express my feelings or talk about deep personal subjects. I was afraid of facing the thoughts I had formed as habits that kept me in my little corner of insanity.

And although it was not the worse I had gotten mentally, in January 2024 things reached a point when I simply got tired of feeling like shit. It was causing a big strain on my marriage and prevented me from seriously pursuing my goals.

I will spare you the details of my personal life, but my lowest point was in 2019 when I was burned out, had just closed a business, and right after, I had an injury in my cervical spine and was in pain for the majority of the year (and the one to come). That physical pain combined with my psychological state made it the worst year of my life.

Since then, I had been on a long climb up. First, I took care of my physical health.

Good thing I have developed a high pain tolerance (gotta look at the bright side, but I digress). Between 2019-2020 I went through intense physiotherapy. Changed my diet to vegetarian. Started doing Pilates and trained alongside old ladies that made it look very easy (it was NOT). When covid hit, I started running almost every day. By that time, I had lost about 20kg (44lbs). I kept at it and then in 2023, I began lifting weights at least 5 times a week. Now in 2025, I’m competing for a Mr. Olympia title. I’m obviously joking.

In parallel with my physical rehab journey, I worked on what I had already going for me. It allowed me to pay the bills, save money, and travel a little. I experimented a lot with things that made me feel uncomfortable. I also felt an incredible need to express my creativity. I even created a YouTube channel and made a few videos. Some I took down because it felt silly and didn’t really align with what I wanted to create. I felt extremely frustrated and quite honestly I wasn’t mentally prepared and did not pursue it seriously.

I think all of this background contributed to 2024 being a good year. The year I decided that it was time to assume my responsibility for my mental health.

What made it good?

After a little mental breakdown at the beginning of 2024, and encouraged by my loving and very patient wife, I sought a professional to do psychotherapy. Quit honestly, the first couple of sessions were very shallow. I was manipulating the entire conversation. But I gave a long thought and decided that I had to be brutally honest with myself.

What occurred to me was that therapy would not be effective if I had not figured it out myself. So I sat one morning after having breakfast and dedicated an hour to personal writing. I had no idea what to write about. I just sat my butt there, opened the laptop, and stared at the text editor. I sat there and did not write. One hour staring at the thing. I could not write anything. I felt pitiful, silly, and afraid.

Look, I don’t want to romanticize the process, but if I’m writing this here.. it’s because it eventually worked. I figured if it was that hard, maybe it was the right path to pursue. After a few tries, I managed to write a great deal. I would choose a theme and with that Goggins energy, I said to myself: I’m gonna beat the shit out of this demon right here. They were all flying and crying for help. I also achieved flow many times, sometimes even felt dizzy when I stopped writing. Suffice it to say, therapy started working as well, and It became a moment to synthesize my findings.

I kept writing through the year and so far my longest streak is 27 days of writing every day. I also took pauses because I felt drained from the effort to a point where my willpower was being crushed for the day.

Besides therapy and personal writing, I was able to keep the other good habits I have developed. I also recovered the habit of reading. I decided to look up books on psychology and related themes. I did not set any goals, but I ended up reading on average one book a month. I took my time and sometimes while reading, I had an insight and would pause to write about it. It just clicked, I had that feeling of connecting the dots. I felt whole.

“I used to think I was an individual with my own life and my own problems. But now I realize we are all just pieces of a bigger puzzle. Alone we are nothing. It’s this lack of… completeness… that complicates our lives. Make us whole. That is what I hear when I close my eyes. Make us whole. That is what we all must do. We just have to get over the first step.” — SCAF Sergeant Richard Lumley

There was one particular week I just felt this “bliss”. I had only felt like that when I took oxy due to my spine pain. And I felt great. The confusion was gone. Until it wasn’t. But that’s life, I have learned bad emotions are just emotions all the same. Btw I took oxy just twice. I didn’t want to add oxy addiction to my habits.

Alright, so this was the year to take care of my mental health. It’s working, and it has become a habit I intend to keep, not just in 2025 but for years to come.

What is next for 2025

In 2024 work wasn’t bad and I made decent money all things considered. But professionally speaking, I have been feeling behind due to working alone most of the time. That’s why I’m planning to spice things up during 2025. Either by investing more in what I already have or by finding an opportunity that I feel is worth my time. Also, local economy is crap and I need to develop more sources of income.

I finally feel more prepared to deal with my insecurities and work on my personal projects such as YouTube. But I will keep these things in the right place, being just a hobby without expectations.

And I think it will be an eventful year, beginning January I will have to move to a different apartment. And I’m also inclined to move to another country although that will require some more planning. I’m in the process of hiring someone to help me with a business. Yeah, the wheels are turning.

I can probably find a theme defining each of past 5 years, a purpose that got most of my energy during that year. For 2025, I still haven’t figured it out exactly, but I’m confident it will come naturally.

Some things I learned, some I’m still learning

I learned a lot about myself.

I finally learned that I should not take myself too seriously and I feel lighter.

I’m learning to increase my awareness, get out of my head and focus on what’s in front of me.

I’m working on being more intentional with my actions, and I’m still learning how to keep it fun instead of feeling frustrated.

I was reminded that drinking too much coffee can cause hot diarrhea.

Things I’m thankful for in 2024

I’m thankful for having a reasonably good situation in life and nothing lacking during 2024.

I’m grateful for having great people around me, most importantly my wife (I really hope she reads this).

I really enjoyed traveling to Japan last month.

I’m grateful for having easy access to the collective work of so many on psychology and related.

I want to make it five, so I’m grateful for good coffee.. although more expensive this year. Good thing I don’t eat Picanha anymore.

Goals for 2025

I stopped believing in goals. I don’t set them anymore. I’m working on my intentions and this helped me build good habits that turn into achievements all the same. I always had a mindset of all or nothing. I no longer think like that because no matter how good or bad something is, the intention is there. It drives me to keep doing it and improving.

There are a few things I want to personally improve:

  • Create and keep a creative cadence;
  • Be more intentional with my time;
  • Drink less coffee and eat less candy (it’s spoiling my gains);

Final thoughts

It would be easy to say that 2024 was a bad year, but I’m satisfied with my progress.

It’s like “selbst schadenfreude”. It feels frustrating but I’m happy with it.

This took way more time to write than I expected and I found myself deleting chunks of text I felt were too personal to be here. There’s so much stuff. But you probably got the gist of it.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Have a great 2025.