2024 in Review
Every year, I do an in-depth yearly review where I go through many questions and reflect on everything that happened throughout the year.
Ever since last year, I started to share those publicly. Here we go again.
I'll keep a very similar structure and only switch out sections or categories that don't make sense this year.
Events
Again, starting with a timeline. The following list is an incomplete collection of my most important trips and events.
- February 23 - 25: Went on a weekend trip to Hamburg with my wife. Took a workshop on the magic of shibari.
- March 07: Passed my first history exam on colonialism and diaspora.
- March 17 - 21: Trip to Paris including a Nils Frahm concert in the philharmonia.
- April 10 - 14: Another trip to France hosting my first tandem retreat with a good friend.
- April 22: Left Carla after almost 3.5 years and took on a new project at the same time.
- April 27: Had our general annual scouts meeting with elections. Happy to serve as a chairperson for the next two years.
- May 09 - 12: Hiked with a scout friend from my local group with whom I've been hiking a lot in the past.
- May 29: Got a new bee colony to do some active beekeeping again.
- June 06: Probably the worst day this year. Had an acute lumbargo, was barely able to walk and ended up in hospital where I got really strong painkillers.
- June 17 - 21 Travelled to Cologne to stay at a friend's house for a week whom I haven't seen in quite a while.
- June 29: Celebrated our 5-year wedding anniversary at, well, a friend's wedding.
- August 06: Met a heart surgeon in Heidelberg to discuss a new type of surgery for my aortic root aneurysm.
- September 17: Hosted another React Meetup in Karlsruhe, after almost five years of inactivity.
- October 04 - 06: Short wellness trip to the Black Forest including a thermae visit.
- October 11 - 15: Hosted another retreat in France. This time with three more people.
- October 19: Participated in an original Japanese tea ceremony.
- November 01: Finally decided to go all-in on self-management and personal development and do courses and coaching full-time.
- November 18 - 20: Spontaneous trip to Vienna to meet Sean in person.
Achievements
I shared my goals for 2024 at the beginning of this year. I was confident I would achieve 90% of them, but also knew that my goals are likely going to change slighty over time. While I hit almost all of my goals, they're not exactly the ones I shared back then.
For example, in January, I wouldn't have anticipated changing my job twice just to restart in an entirely new industry. Also the whole process around my autism diagnosis threw me off quite a bit.
That said, I'm really happy about this past year and proud of all the things I have achieved. Here're the most important ones from categories such as health, relationship, career, education and personal development:
- Celebrated 1 year without alcohol
- Publicly came out as autistic and agender
- Increased my estimated VO2max to 50
- Lost 5 kilograms landing at 72kg
- Walked more than 3.000.000 steps
- Passed two more exams for my philosophy bachelor
- Read 37 books on a vast spectrum of topics (twice as much as any other year)
- Published 13 articles on 3 different blogs (twice as much as any other year)
- Shared 24 learnings in my learnings section
- Sold more than 1000 copies of our new scout songbook
- Learned how to produce more than 12 foods such as kefir, tempeh and vegan cheese
- Designed a draft for our own house
- Went on 12 ABC dates with my wife, one letter each month
- Completed 3 30-day challenges on meditation, writing and mobility training
- Established monthly check-ins with a couple of close friends
- Grew my blog to more than 2.000 monthly visitors
- Grew my newsletter subscribers by 660%
- Hosted my very first retreat with a small group of people
- Launched this new website
- Launched a free Wheel of Life app
- Built a self-management app (coming soon)
Learnings & Insights
As stated above, I shared a total of 24 learnings on my website.
I try to learn something new every day, but not every learning is worth sharing.
Still, scrolling through my journal at the end of each year is a great opportunity to reflect on the most important and infuential learnings again.
- I'm autistic and agender.
Well, this comes at no surprise given that I already wrote a lengthy article about my diagnosis and self-discovery. Nevertheless it's been one of the most fundamental revelations this year and thus had to be briefly mentioned at least. - It's unfair to expect twice as much from yourself compared to others.
Generally speaking, I have rather high expectations for the people around me, but the expectations for myself are still easily twice as high as that. When others fail to met those expectations, I usually don't really care too much, but I definitely can't say that the same about myself. Reflecting on that made me realise that this is not only stupid, but actually hurting myself in many ways. - Saying yes to something inevitably means saying no to something else.
I kinda knew this before. I preached it to others all the time and still failed to follow it myself, but this year I really understood what it means to say no and I will try to do it more often next year.
Fails, Mistakes & Regrets
Everyone makes mistakes and everyone fails once in a while. It's easy to share all the good stuff and get praise for it, but it's much harder to admit the mistakes and share them publicly. But, instead of hiding them, we should embrace and learn from them!
- Not strenghtening my core and back muscles enough.
I had my very first lumbargo in June. There wasn't a particular incident that triggered it, but it rather built up over time. Although I own both a standing desk and a office treadmill, I spent way too much time sitting in unhealthy positions on the couch or at our dining table. Well, and you already know the result. Since then I've seen a physiotherapist and started doing 2-3 strength workouts every week. It's one of those things that could have easily been avoided, but you somehow only react after something terrible happened. Let's hope this was my first and last one! - Staying in a project that I didn't enjoy.
Before committing to my new coaching business, I freelanced for a company that I didn't really like almost from the get-go. It simply wasn't what I expected from the project. Yet, I still stayed there for over six months and spent way too much time doing something I didn't enjoy. In hindsight, I should have left earlier and pursue my dream immediately.
Top 3s
Let's get to the fun part: rankings.
It's always easy to share huge lists of all the great things that happened in a year, but as soon as you have to pick your top 3, it quickly becomes a challenging endevour.
I decided to use the same categories as last year, but I will definitely add some new ones next year to spice things up a little bit.
Books
This year, I read 37 books, mostly non-fiction on philosophy, productivity and neurodivesity following my personal effective reading framework.
I also read a bunch of fantasy, primarily from Brandon Sanderson.
Follow-ups are How To Live and Zero To One.
Check my Goodreads profile for a full reading list!
Series
I usually don't watch that many movies or series, so this one usually is very easy for me.
That said, I started rewatching parts of Naruto, especially the Akatsuki arc.
Concerts
I've been to 9 concerts this year with most also aligning with my top artists in Apple Music. I'm particularily happy about the discovery of So Soon which is a project by two talented musicians that I know back from school days.
For 2025, I already bought tickets for Buntspecht and RY X and I would give everything for a Pomme concert right now.
Year in Numbers
To finish it off, here are some random numbers and facts for this year. The first three are derived from my daily journal and are measured on a 1-5 scale. Everything else is a mix of health data, memory recall and or other data points form services I use.
Movement, mindful and workout days are new and derived from my habit tracker.
Values that I already shared last year, will also show the difference in percentage.
For example, my average mood increased by a total of 17%.
*walking and running combined
**including underwear, socks, jewelry and basics
Conclusion
Overall it was, once again, a quite a nice year for me. Looking at the numbers, I walked less, did less trips and fewer scout activities and yet increased my averge mood, energy levels and day ratings.
First and foremost, I learned a lot about myself, my identity and what I really want from life. I can't wait to see how 2025 unfolds.