24 Life Lessons from 2024: The Mistakes I’ve Made

Another year, another year of lessons.

It’s that time of the year when I start thinking of how my year went, and the lessons I learned along the way.

It’s a pretty bittersweet part of the year as you think about how you started the year, not knowing how the year would turn out.

For my last blog post of 2024, I decided to just compile the 24 lessons from 2024. Some lessons are random things and other lessons are actually deep ones.

Let’s dive in.

1 – Everything is personalized – work routines, habits, processes

I LOVE implementing every new productivity tip and strategy out there (it is addicting, to be honest). However, this year, more than ever, I learned that all your routines, habits, processes… are all personalized to everyone. Not everyone has the same exact routines, habits, or processes when it comes to anything.

Once I discovered my personalized study and work routine, I got the best grades I have ever gotten when it was my last semester of law school.

While it did take time to discover what worked best for me, once I did, it made a huge difference.

2 – An organization system is so important… especially if you are balancing multiple things

If you have other things in your life, other than work, then an organization system is a necessity.

Throughout the year, I was balancing studies (in the first half of the year) and practical legal training (in the second half of the year), this blog, social media content creation, church, and a lot of other things in my personal life. The only way I could manage that was by having an organization system that helped me keep track of everything.

My organization system has been Notion for the past few years.

If you haven’t already, have some organization system to organize your life, whether it’s electronic or paper, it will make life so much easier for you.

3 – Grab those opportunities

This goes for everything from career to hanging out with friends, basically anything that comes your way.

For 2024, I grabbed the opportunity to go to Hawaii after I finished my final law school exam. I grabbed the opportunity to move interstate and start fresh. I grabbed the opportunity to do my practical legal training in my new city. I grabbed, I grabbed, because I didn’t want any regrets.

So, if you need a sign to grab those opportunities in 2025, this is the one.

4 – You’re not always going to master every new habit

There are so many different habits that you learn about that you can incorporate into your life.

Throughout the year, I learned of all these different habits that I attempted to incorporate into my life, but it didn’t exactly go my way. There were some habits that took AGES to instill in me (filming content, improved night routine), while other habits were never instilled in me at all (various strategies I used to stop snoozing my alarm).

But it is important to remember that because of various circumstances such as your life situation, some habits are harder to implement than others.

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5 – You can choose to have a better day at ANY time in the day

I write this as I’m in Starbucks. This morning, I had a terrible morning where I felt so stressed about the lawyer admissions process, and doubted myself. By 12 pm, I drove to Starbucks, ordered a matcha, and sat down and did my work. I feel better as I’m writing this now.

And I had so many similar days like this in 2024. Instead of letting one bad moment become an entire bad day, I let myself feel that bad moment, and start again.

This is why I love the four quarters concept – morning, noon (12pm-3pm), afternoon (3pm-6pm) and evening (6pm onwards). Had a bad morning? You can start again in the next quarter (noon). Had a bad afternoon? You can start again in the next quarter (evening).

6 – Habit Stacking is Your Bestie

If you don’t know what habit stacking is, it’s basically when you pair habits. For example, you go on a walk while listening to a podcast. You watch YouTube videos while folding your laundry. Most of the time, it’s pairing a task you don’t like with a task you do like, so you feel more motivated to do it.

Habit stacking has become my bestie on multiple occasions this year, especially when it comes to chores.

7 – Don’t feel guilty about the bad days

The reason why I felt guilty was because I lost productivity. I felt like I would fall behind if I dealt with my emotions first.

Even today (the day I’m writing this blog post), I cried because I felt so guilty that I let another bad day derail me from the plans and to-do list I had today. But just like I mentioned previously, I couldn’t let one moment, become a bad day.

As cliche as it sounds, you need the bad days to embrace the good days.

I started romanticizing my bad days like I’m in a movie/TV show because characters have those kinds of days. The movie/TV show would be so boring if they didn’t have a challenging day. Hence why, I went to Starbucks today to complete my work.

8 – Don’t feel guilty for crying

The number of times I’ve been told as a child to stop being a crybaby made me feel like I needed to hold in my tears into adulthood. But that did more harm than good.

This year, I made an effort to let myself cry, without feeling guilty about it. Crying is actually good for you because you let all those emotions out. I find that if I don’t let it all out now, it will eventually come out.

I’ve cried by myself (multiple times) and I’ve also cried in front of other people. I stopped feeling ashamed about it because I’m simply a human.

I LOVE this analogy for this: suppressing your emotions is like driving with a flat tire. When you discover you have a flat tire, and you decide to keep driving, the tire is eventually going to break down more anyway, and you’ll still have to fix it. If you had fixed the flat tire in the beginning, you would’ve already dealt with it and didn’t have to worry about it later on.

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9 – Romancitize your bad days like the movies/TV shows

Discovering this was life-changing because it gave me a whole new perspective on my bad days.

These include days where:

• I stayed up late to study because I had multiple events during the day
• Things didn’t go my way (multiple times)
• I was sick
• I needed a mental health day
• I had a busy day at work
• Something upset me lol

And yeah, this list is not exhaustive lol.

I literally would pretend that I’m in a TV show or movie whenever I face some sort of challenge or bad day.

10 – Accept that overcoming perfectionism takes a lot of practice

I asked ChatGPT this: Based on everything you know about me, what is something I need to work on?

The answer was my need for perfectionism. It’s honestly true because whenever I miss just ONE day of doing my habits, or ONE thing on my to-do list, instead of focusing on what I’ve accomplished, I focus on the fact that it wasn’t 100% complete.

Throughout this year, I’ve been making an effort to look more at what I’ve accomplished, instead of what I didn’t do. But let me just say that my mind can’t help but look at the latter. However, I’ve learned to be easy on myself and accept that it’ll take time and practice to overcome this perfectionism of mine.

11 – Stop feeling guilty when you’re sick and you fall behind

I’ve had my fair share of colds and fevers this year. But I got upset at myself for falling behind on my work because of it.

I immediately knew that this was not a good way to treat myself.

The little fallback I get into whenever I catch myself doing this is simply treating myself as if I’m my best friend or someone I deeply care for.

Whenever I start embodying this mentality, I stop beating myself up for falling behind.

12 – Don’t worry about anything while you’re on vacation

I have found myself trying my best to stick with my daily habits and routines while on vacation. This also goes for any work I could fall behind on.

The way I worked through any guilt is by remembering this: I paid for this vacation (or someone else did lol), and I owe it to myself to FULLY enjoy the vacation.

Plus, when I look back at the memories of my vacation, there is no way I’m going to remember the habits I did/didn’t do. I’m going to remember literally the things that happened on vacation.

Yes, the fact that there will still be work I need to catch up won’t change. But if I can’t change it, then I might as well not worry about it.

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13 – Strategize after a setback so you don’t repeat the same setback

On top of habit tracking, I also note down the reason I didn’t do the habit. For example, if I didn’t do my exercise habit because I was sick, I would say that on x day, I didn’t complete this exercise habit because I was sick.

Sometimes, the reason would be of different other circumstances (e.g.I stayed up late because I was on social media for too long, I was on social media for too long because I was procrastinating a life admin task). But, by identifying this reason, I am able to strategize on what to do so it’s not repeated.

This has occurred throughout this year. That’s why I’ve learned to slowly be kind to myself whenever I experience a setback because I know that I will strategize to ensure that it won’t occur again. You need to have a couple of losses and failures along the way to set yourself up for success.

14 – Listen to your body

I feel like I’ve been pretty good with this.

I let myself rest instead of forcing myself to work when my body is showing that it’s feeling tired.

I let myself take it easy with exercise when my body is showing that it needs lighter movement.

But there have been times when I went against what my body was telling me, and it would backfire in the process. For example, I would get so overly drained or I would end up getting sick.

15 – Listen to yourself

This is all about self-trust.

I’ve made a few big decisions that required me to trust myself.

This included my interstate move, which institution to do my practical legal training, and also when I went on vacation.

I’ve learned the importance of quieting other people’s noises so I can allow myself to understand what I want and need.

16 – Self-trust is built without the noise of other people

Similar to above, I needed to learn how to be myself and think about what I wanted first, before asking people for their thoughts and opinions.

But this also goes for when I have already received another person’s opinion before I had the chance to decide for myself.

I had instances throughout this year where I had to quiet the noise of other people and make the decision for myself. Let me just say that each time I decided for myself, I built more trust.

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RELATED: Times When You Shouldn’t Feel Bad About Your Life

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17 – You never know when is your last X

I’ve had a lot of “lasts” this year.

• My last semester of law school: my last class, last study sessions with friends, last campus study sessions, last library sessions, last events.
• Moved to a new state: last day, last time going to my regular spots

And there were also last’s I didn’t know ended up being my last. For instance, I didn’t know it was my last day at my job until the day I got laid off.

There was also a time when I didn’t know it would be the last time I would hang out with someone.

The point is, you never know when is going to be your “last” something, so you’ve got to treat everything like it’s your last.

18 – Recognize moments as they are happening

Similar to the previous one, I’ve learned to recognize the moment while I’m living in it. Because once that moment became a memory, it’s so bittersweet.

This goes for all vacations, all of my “last” moments, even the mundane moments in my last.

I’m also trying my best to live in the present and not stress about the past or future.

19 – Have in the back of your mind “Should I be doing this now?“

I learned of this concept in the second half of the year. It’s where you ask yourself “Should I really be doing this now” whenever you find yourself doom scrolling on social media, wasting time on something you shouldn’t be doing, or procrastinating in general.

By asking yourself that question, you realize that maybe you should be spending your time doing something else more beneficial. For instance, I have caught myself asking this question during times I was on social media for way too long than I should’ve, or watching too many TV show episodes.

It can be a hard question, but it does give you a reality check.

20 – Discipline yourself to act as if everyone is watching you

Since my blog and content are mainly on self-improvement and personal development, this has been in the back of my mind constantly. Sometimes, it can feel a bit like a curse.

Whenever I feel upset for failing at something, I remember that I have written a blog post on dealing with failures, and then I discipline myself to act as if someone is watching me implement the things I wrote.

Whenever I am doing a habit I shouldn’t be doing, I remember that I wrote a blog post on bad habits you need to break for personal development and discipline myself accordingly.

But you don’t need a blog or need to create content to discipline yourself as if everyone is watching you. Sometimes, just imagining people watching your day-to-day could be enough to push you to be productive and make meaningful use of your time.

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21 – You don’t have to be 100%, 100% of the time

I’ve learned multiple times this year that even if I’m not feeling 100% (whether physically or mentally), I can still do things.

My best is going to look different every day and that’s okay.

My bare minimum is going to have different levels every day and that’s okay.

Because just a small step forward is still going forward.

22 – Your feelings aren’t always facts and predictions

Because of what I’ve learned about “intuition” and gut feelings, it led to a lot of my overthinking. I had a feeling of multiple things that either did happen (but I let myself experience it twice because I worried about it before it happened) or things that never did happen.

I’ve had to remind myself on multiple occasions whenever I catch myself like this – my feelings are simply just feelings and there are no facts to back them up yet.

I also can’t predict the future as well based on the “feelings” I get. Whenever I catch myself thinking this way, I try to focus on what I can control and what I can do at a certain moment, and just let it go. I gotta keep practicing that into the new year.

23 – Let yourself be human

What I mean by being a human: making mistakes, having a cry, feeling frustrated, feeling anxious, and not feeling positive 100% of the time.

The reason why I felt guilty for being a human was because:

• People would get mad for my mistakes
• I got told to stop being a crybaby when I was little
• I got told that I had no patience whenever I felt frustrated, even though my frustration was justified
• People made me feel bad for being anxious because I’m supposed to “trust fully”
• People made me feel guilty for not being positive and for being a negative Nancy.

What I’m working on is letting go of the times people had made me feel guilty for doing human things, and remembering that their statements are a reflection of them, not me.

24 – Sometimes you have to think about what you don’t want, more than what you do want.

I asked ChatGPT to give me an in-depth description of what my life would be like if I didn’t do the work and habits I needed to do to reach my goals.

Let me just say, that the fear of what would happen if I slacked off was a bigger motivator than any vision board I have ever made.

This isn’t to make me feel scared or feel negative. This has literally become my drive so it doesn’t become my reality.

You best believe I’m doing this for 2025.

Take a SMALL STEP

It doesn’t matter if you are reading this when I posted it (December 2024) or some other time, you can still reflect on lessons you learned from this month or even this week. You don’t need to wait until the end of the year to start reflecting.

To Wrap Up

As I’m writing this, I honestly cannot believe it’s the end of another year already. It’s also been another year of writing blog posts… 4 years to be exact!

If you need some extra resources for your self-improvement, the Free Resources Library has a bunch of mini ebooks, workbooks, and guides to assist!

In the meantime, here’s to reflecting, learning, growing, and continuously striving to become better versions of ourselves (while still being kind to ourselves in the process).

-Lauren 🙂

P.S I suggest you read these blog posts next:

• The Habits I Thrived in 2024 (& The Ones I Didn’t)
• Turning 23: 23 Valuable Lessons That Shaped My Year
• Become the Ultimate Main Character of Your Life in 28 Days

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