The best changes I made in 2023

And what I'm going to improve in 2024

Before we get started - a reminder if you’d like to win an original painting by artist Narjia Brownlie valued at $8100 (and raise money for women’s charity, Good Shepherd) - enter here. You can until tomorrow night (Jan 8 11.59pm AEST) to enter. The winner will be announced January 9!

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I hope the New Year has been treating you well so far. I got back home from our Christmas break on Tuesday and took the rest of the week off with the plan to officially start the working year tomorrow. I have a very full January (work wise) coming up so it was important to properly rest and not have a huge to-do list for as long as I could stretch it.

Reflecting on 2023, there’s a bunch of things I did differently that made a really positive impact on my year. They weren’t all that challenging to start and then maintain. In 2024 I will be continuing onwards with what worked for me in 2023 and build upon them with some new focuses! Sharing all this below.

Goal setting can feel intimidating - sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. For me, I focus on where things are/are not feeling good and work from there, figuring out changes that can be made to improve whatever the situation is.

I’d love to know if there’s anything you’re working on this year or wanting to improve. Leave a comment to inspire us all!

The best things I did for me in 2023

Travel: I started the year in New York and then Los Angeles and shortly after arriving home booked a big trip away with my mum. It felt extravagant to have a trip in the middle of the year for 7 weeks - without my husband! I’d be lying if contemplating that trip pre-departure didn’t bring me huge anxiety BUT if I learnt one thing last year, it’s that I (unnecessarily) stress so much over things that usually never end up becoming problematic in reality. It felt like the longest time to be away from Angus (and our cats), I worried about work, all the planes and just the scope of the all the travel. Of course I ended up having the best time and hardly felt homesick as I was too distracted by all the wonderful things I was experiencing. It also really helped that I was travelling with my mum as her presence was incredibly soothing and settled me just by being next to me. The mid-year trip really made it clear how much I love to travel and how important it is to my happiness, my mind and identity. It’s a huge priority again for me this year (and likely every year!).

Walking more / cancelling Pilates membership: At the start of 2023, after coming back from a month in New York and LA, we’d done so much walking and it reminded me how much I love to walk; it’s one of my favourite parts of travelling. So I made it a goal for the rest of 2023 to walk everyday and make it my main form of exercising. 2022 had been all about Pilates for me, which I loved, but towards the end of that year, with my schedule exploding, it was becoming increasingly trickier to make the classes work in my routine. I was also feeling stressed and guilty for wasting my (not cheap) unlimited membership. Removing the membership and the burden of making the most of it helped to ease some stress. I still did occasional Pilates classes when I could fit them in.

I love that I can squeeze in a walk at any time of day, and it’s free! I listen to podcasts, Taylor Swift on repeat, make phone calls, sometimes I’ll do emails or even edit videos while I walk. It’s easy on the body, I don’t dread it (which can happen with other forms of exercise) and it’s been fantastic for my mental health. 10/10 perfection - no notes.

I was more intentional with how I spent my time / said ‘no’ more: Sometimes you have to get real with yourself and weigh up what’s working and what isn’t. Sometimes it hits you in the face and other times other times it’s a slow burn on the journey to realization. I knew early on, my routine wasn’t working for me and I wanted to slow down a little, focus on my physical and mental health. So for me in 2023, I worked on saying ‘no’ more when in the past I’d have said yes and then regret it. I didn’t always nail this but it was something I got better at with time and will continue to finesse in 2024. By saying ‘no’ more often, it allowed me to lean into what genuinely makes me happy and feel good, a step toward really living for me and not for others.

Less takeaway / more home cooked meals and introduce new recipes + go to meals: In 2022 we got too comfortable ordering food most nights of the week. I felt such guilt for all the money spent and how it wasn’t making me feel good (home cooked meals just make me feel better!!) despite the convenience of it all. So in 2023 I worked hard to limit our Uber Eats consumption to weekends only. Cooking more really helped with my evening wind-down and it just felt rewarding. I will admit that towards the end of the year this got harder to stick to but the back end of the year is always tricky so we can forgive this.

We also wanted to add a few new meals into our cooking rotation. We added a delicious new red curry into the mix (Angus absolutely nailed this!!) and I added a delicious sweet and spicy chicken meatball, veg and rice dish to our repertoire and also thanks to TikTok many new recipes were trialed. One easy stand out was the creamy sesame hot chilli oil noodles.

Decluttering: A clear space is a clear mind! I worked on clearing out expired beauty products, culling clothing, reassessing furniture (I sold and replaced a few key pieces last year), things in the pantry, old plates and bowls with a few too many chips and ditching old bedding bits and pieces. It’s an extremely satisfying exercise but I still find myself putting it off as decision fatigue takes over regarding what I should and shouldn’t keep. I found that decluttering certain sections or specific products one at a time is the key to not getting overwhelmed. Decluttering will always be on the agenda and so I’ll carry on with it in 2024.

What I want to improve in 2024

I will continue the routines and goals I set in 2023 - more walking, more travel (I have some exciting trips in January for work, we’re going to Japan in for Easter and I plan to book a trip to Europe and potentially NYC later in the year), continue my decluttering grind, continue saying no where I need to and staying true to me, more home cooking. Here’s some new goals:

Forever and always trying to procrastinate less: A huge source of my anxiety and what often keeps me up at night is related to the things I’ve put off during the day. They haunt me!! Less of this in 2024 and beyond would be great so I will work on tackling whatever it is that I don’t want to do sooner rather than later. Pray for me.

A better morning routine: Earlier bedtime, earlier wakeup. Towards the end of 2023 I really felt like there weren’t enough hours in the day. So getting to bed earlier and waking up earlier might be the answer to my problems. I also want to scroll less on my phone in bed before bedtime and as soon as I wake up and swap this scroll time for more reading! I’ve been reading in the morning this past week instead of picking up my phone and it’s been so lovely. Let’s see how long that lasts…

Eating breakfast: For my whole life I’ve skipped breakfast or had it later in the morning. My first meal tends to be around brunch/heading into lunch time. I want to change this and eat breakfast when I wake up, even if it’s something small, then have a proper lunch and dinner. I want to try this as I find I’m starving by 3-4pm and need snacks or I wait til dinner and I’m ravenous/hangry. I also want to work on eating more protein.

Set up my studio upstairs/proper work space at home: Ever since we moved into our home 2.5 years ago I’ve been working from my little office space next to our kitchen or from the dining table. This is no longer functional so I’m going to take over our top level space (third bedroom) and turn it into my office/studio space! I’ll share the process of how I want to style the space, furniture finds etc if you’d like.

I want to use my film camera more: Like I’m talking a roll of film a month! That sounds like a doable goal. Moments captured on film are so special. I think it would be a great way to document the year, month by month.

Continue to nurture and work on my Substack: Launching my Substack last year was one of the best things I did. I love the community that’s emerging here (thank you so much for subscribing and engaging!!). It’s a true pleasure to work on this and create Substacks each week so I can’t wait to see where it goes this year.

Read more: As mentioned above, less phone scrolling, more reading for 2024! I want to diversify my reading and media diet, listen to new podcasts and discover new writers on Substack!

More Smooth Brain Thoughts soon,

Ali x