Shaping Happiness In December 2024 And a Farewell to 2024

The year 2024 is mere 48 hours gone and I am all here for 2025. However it wouldn’t be fair to my lovely word shape to not finishing strong. And so for the final time I will look at how shaping happiness in December 2024 looked like. It was a busy months that started out stressful and ended on a high note.

How I incorporated my word SHAPE in December

Shaping Life and Happiness

• I enjoyed a day with Christmas tree cutting and living our own Hallmark Holiday Movie.
• I closed out of client work by December 13th and spent the following week getting some administrative things in order.

Shaping Health and Body

• I walked 114,6 kilometers and an average of 5,117 steps daily in February. Two days I hit the 10.000 steps goal.
• I managed to close my Apple Watch rings once.
• I did four yoga sessions and a total of 1 hour and 49 minutes. 
• I did six weight lifting sessions.

Shaping Mind & Soul

• I went for xxx Mornings Walks
• I read four Christmas stories in December and listened to one Christmas themed audio book.
• I went to church on two Sundays and sang my favorite songs.
• I enjoyed the Christmas concert I was invited to.
• I found my word for 2025.
• I took some time to reflect on 2024.

Shaping Relationships

• We had a fun birthday celebration.
• I had a lovely breakfast date with my best friend.
• I managed to get Christmas cards out – rather late but the thought counts.
• I celebrated a low key New Years Eve with the husband with some fancy non-alcoholic drinks.

Shaping Home

• I decorated early for advent which set a whole different vie to the season.
• We managed to hang up a bathroom mirror.
• I (partly) deep cleaned the apartment with the husbands help.
• I crawled into bed on New Years Eve with new sheets.
• I made progress on my picture wall.

Farewell to my Shaping Goals of 2024

Alright now, bear with me. As 2024 came to an end I feel like I need to do a check in with the goals I set for myself last year.

Shape Life & Happiness

• I will travel to new places.
  We have spent a wonderful anniversary trip and a day trip to Denmark. The second vacation to Amsterdam unfortunately didn’t happen. Being unemployed and both struggling financially didn’t leave much time and money to spend on vacation.
• I will create new experiences and memorable moments.
  We started doing Date Days and it has made us some wonderful moments,
• I will use my boating license. 
  I spent four glorious hours on the water with my dad.

Shape Health & Body

This was a key focus for me in 2024 and I will write a more detailed recap – mainly for myself and to have a benchmark in my journey forward.

• I will enjoy the magic of one detox week.
  Didn’t happen. Ran out of time and I need at least 10 days without any meetings, parties, and such to really embrace it.
• I will eat less sugar. 
  I did no sugar for lent and then a sugar free month in November. This was good. But I don’t like doing it.
• I will take naps.
  This was not as prominent than I had hoped.
• I will use no phone before 9am. 
  A goal I lost somewhere along the way.
• I will enjoy Social Media Free Sundays each month.
  I tried hard to do this and had to admit it is harder than I want it to be. Diring my 100 day project I didn’t enforce it.
• I will walk an average of 6.000 steps each day.
  I almost hit it landing on 5.919 steps daily.
• I will create a fitness routine. 
  I have established a routine and showed up week after week. More detailed info to be found in a separate blog post.
• I will try new things to stay active. 
  Nothing to report here unfortunately.
• I will manage to close all my rings at least once a month. 
  I think I can check this off.
• I will be getting a fitted bra.
  Couldn’t find any good supplier and since I worked on loosing weight it didn’t make much sense. invested in some wireless bralette which are comfortable.

Shape Mind & Soul

• I will participate in 100 Day Project.
  I started and made it to day 77 when I decided I am no longer enthusiastic about this challenge.
• I will take walks in nature and appreciate my surroundings.
  I feel I didn’t really embrace this goal. I did my walks and I upped the amount of walks but I often ended up just walking around the neighborhood and not into nature. One reason being the unleashed dogs that I encounter and cannot handle.
• I will shape my mind by reading.
  I read 92 books and it was great.
• I will take more photos.
  This wasn’t too successful. I mainly used my phone camera to take the shape images but I rarely used the big camera.
• I will collect quotes that incorporate the word “shape”.
  I did and wrote a whole post about it.
• I will shape a piece of wood.
  Didn’t happen but dried the piece of wood I was going to use.

My favorite photo I took in 2024. Finding shapes by looking up.

Shape Relationships

• I will celebrate our 10th anniversary in February. 
  We did and it was great – read about our anniversary get-away.
• I will be kinder when I am in a bad mood.
  How do you measure this. I fear there is lots of improvement possible.
• I will visit my sister and her family.
  We’ve visited once in early March and then seen them in Berlin but overall I feel I didn’t put enough effort into this.
• I will enjoy the family reunion.
  This was canceled as no one felt responsible to organize.
• I will organize a cousins reunion.
  I have brought up the idea multiple times and in the end my uncle started planning a big reunion for 2026. So I will postpone for now and maybe attempt a cousin reunion in 2028?
• I will make time to call family more often. 
  I am not sure I can ve satisfied with this one.
• I will meet at least one friend in real life per month.
  I have tried but it didn’t happen in some months. Sad.
• I will participate in NaBloPoMo and stay connected to my online friends.
  Huge success. I did it and received so many lovely cards for Christmas too.

Shape Home

• I will create cozy and relaxing outdoor space.
  We did that and I enjoyed a lot of time outside. Only a sun umbrella is missing.
• I will continue to declutter. 
  I have been chipping away at it but not as much as I had hoped.
• I will create a picture wall with art pieces and photos.
  I have started but it needs finishing touches.
• I will explore the neighborhood. 
  I did some exploring but not as much as I had hoped for.

Overall I think it has been a pretty good year. I did tackle some har goals. I wasn’t able to focus on all things the same but that is fine.

ELEVATING January

Yesterday I told you about my word ELEVATE. Today I want to break it down to some actionable steps. Starting to chip away at these intentions I set.

• I will elevate my soul by
  …planning the itinerary for our anniversary trip to Gdansk.
• I will elevate my creativity by
  …starting an art journaling practice.
• I will elevate my hobbies by
  …reading a book with elevate/elevation in the title.
• I will elevate my physical appearance and fitness by
  …doing Adriennes one week yoga challenge (thanks Julie for the motivation).
  …striving for three days of yoga.
  …starting to weigh lift three times a week.
  …doing lunch time walks on weekdays.
• I will elevate my health by
  …doing the clinical sleep study.
  …starting to get back to better and cleaner eating after the holidays.
  …researching possible apps to track perimenopause symptoms (suggestions welcome).
• I will elevate my relationships by
  …celebrating my dad’s birthday.
  …meeting and networking with people surrounding the trade fair I attend.
  …scheduling some gatherings with friends.
• I will elevate my home by
  …doing a deep clean after the holidays.
• I will elevate my style by
  …wearing a fancy outfit outside the home once.

I am sorry for the length of this post. I wanted to finish up all my thoughts on 2024 and not leave January without goals. So it has been getting bit out of hand. Thank you for reading along. Gold stars if you made it to here.

How did your December shape up to be? How did you do on your 2024 goals? Any plans for January 2025?