Hello 2025! I Did a Year Compass

I am quite shit at setting goals. My previous new year's resolutions were of the "find meaning in life" and "stop falling sick" variety, which are objectively terrible goals (not SMART-compliant). So I was excited to come across Year Compass, which I thought might help me to define a direction for 2025 without the artificiality of goalsetting.

The first half of Year Compass has you reflecting on the past year and summarising themes in some key areas of your life. I had already done my 2024 books and 2024 work reflections, so some of it was easy. 

• Personal/family: solo travel & life exploration alongside Jon, becoming closer to my parents

• Career/studies: career switch to social work was a flop (but not really - it opened a lot of doors)

• Friends/community: really went out of my comfort zone with people this year, making new friends etc.

• Hobbies/creativity: (pretty stagnant) drawing & writing & travel 

• Health/fitness: (again, nothing new) yoga & good groceries

• Mental health/self knowledge: had a breakthrough through therapy (both formal and informal) and now have a much more peaceful relationship with "success"

• Defining habits: dressing up and hanging out in cafes became A Thing for me

• Impact: feels like I have little to no impact?

I struggled with the section about my 3 biggest accomplishments and 3 biggest challenges. Can "feeling okay with getting older" be an accomplishment? I put "War and Peace" as one of my 3 challenges hahah.

My favourite bit was drawing 2024's best moments:

The second half of Year Compass is about looking forward into 2025 and deciding how you want the year to turn out. Again I racked my brains, but it seems like I could only set the gentlest of intentions:

• Personal/family: proactively plan new experiences/adventures with loved ones

• Career/studies: get a job (any) and stay there for minimum 1 year

• Friends/community: invest time and energy into friendships (new & existing)

• Hobbies/creativity: draw instead of write, travel as much as possible, long walks & more nature time, play games

• Health/fitness: dance, slow lift, eat mostly pescetarian and home-cooked

• Mental health/self knowledge: turn attention outwards

• Defining habits: stay offline (remove distracting things on phone)

• Impact: indulge curiosity about others, give away money

There's this fun bit called "magical triplets for 2025" where you come up with 3 things in response to prompts. Here are some of mine:

• I am ready to let go of these 3 things: inward journey (it's done), locating identity in the external, and "success metrics"

• I have the power to say no to these 3 things: laziness (because I want a fuller life), piecemeal hustles, and... snacks?

• I will pamper myself with these 3 things regularly: thoroughly & attentively cuddling my pets, pastries (duh), and cafe people-drawing sessions (which I can do when I travel, too)

• I will visit these 3 places: Baguio, Mel's grave, The Animal Lodge

Other prompts:

• I will draw the most energy from... sunlight and people with pleasing auras

• I will be bravest when... dealing with people who trigger my dislike (brave in terms of mastering emotions and facing conflict rather than run away)

• Secret wish for 2025: to have a beautiful and nice wedding

The Year Compass exercise left me feeling a little unsatisfied. I can certainly see some tentative wishes and desires, but I might need to revisit "success metrics" (my old friend!) after all to develop them into measurable goals. Because, without metrics, what would "saying no to laziness" even mean?!

Now I want to show off my new MD Notebooks! The A5 blank notebook is for freeform journalling - sketches, doodles, thoughtdumps, notes - while the B6 slim grid notebook on the right is a combined weekly planner (forward looking) and logbook (retrospective).

I have been trying out this 2-notebook system for a few months and like it a lot. By the way, I use a Platinum Preppy fountain pen in EF (0.2mm) nib. It feels a little too thin for MD paper (which is very “toothy”) but I think I just need to write/draw more slowly.

The final week of 2024: writing, lying in bed feeling gloomy, Jaggi's with Joel, IKEA outing with parents, microwaving salmon for the first time (it rocked), listening to Limp Bizkit, air con cleaning, finishing Jude the Obscure (the book), finishing 100 Years of Solitude (the TV show), eating sushi and gyoza at home while watching Boybands Forever, a long-ass trek to find Shake Salad, buying engraved wedding rings on Shopee, and We Beer (& Zi Char) Together.