Dear reader,
2024 was one of the biggest years of my life. A lot happened. I strengthened some relationships, moved to the US, started university, met amazing people, became super productive, crushed some and gave up on most goals.
Note: The point of these yearly reviews (starting 2023) is to document my learnings, experiences, and events from the past year. I also hope that the lessons on these pages can spark some ideas to improve your own lives.
Also, my most important reflection is towards the end.
Let’s begin with the biggest change.
Moving countries
On 21 July 2024, I moved to the US. For some time after moving, I didn’t feel anything until I began struggling to make sense of everything. That passed after a few weeks.
Understanding the subway system of New York City was real tasking, but now that I’ve gotten comfortable with it, everything seems obvious.
I’m usually super busy in my day-to-day, but sometimes I randomly realize that I’m living in one of the greatest cities in the world. It’s crazy!
Here’s some photos I took while in NYC.
Lesson: Learning anything new seems challenging only for some time. When you keep doing it for a while, you get used to it and everything becomes easy.
Relationships
2024 was an interesting year for my friendships.
I had a lot of experiences with a lot my friends, especially the ones from Nepal. Fun memories. I was looking for more photos to put here but I realized I don’t really have a lot of photos. I wish I did.
For the longest time, I’ve been that guy who says “live in the moment, you don’t need to photograph/record everything.” But now that I’m away from home, there have been multiple times when I go through old photos and wish I had taken more of them.
I, of course, don’t have to go all in and take photos of everything all the time. If I try, which I will in 2025, I can find a balance between being in the present while sufficiently taking some photos/clips for seeing the memories I’ve lived.
Lesson: Take more photos.
Health & Fitness
2024 was the year when I focused a lot on my health and fitness.
For most of the year, I have gone the gym at least 5 times a week. “Most of the year” because there have been weeks, and sometimes months, when I haven’t been able to go to the gym.
Sometimes it was because my schedule was super tight, and the other times it was because I couldn’t get myself to go. But even when I couldn’t go to the gym, I’ve made sure to do some physical activity, that mostly included doing pushups.
There was a time during 2024 when I used to go to the gym regularly and felt like I was in the best shape I had ever been. I’m not in that shape as of now.
In 2025, though, I hope I’ll be able to get to it again. And hopefully get even better. I don’t know how I’ll do it quite yet, but I want to. And if I want to, which I do, this is going to be one of my priorities for 2025.
Lesson: If I show up regularly, great result is inevitable. Pushups is the minimum for a healthy body, never quitting that.
How I did on 2024 goals
This was the section in which I failed the most, but am the happiest about. So here were the goals I set for 2024 last year when I was doing my yearly review.
You can read my 2023 review and goals here.
- Learn to drive a car: Failed.
- It just wasn’t important for me.
- Journal every day: Half passed.
- I journaled everyday for most of the year, then I realized that journaling was becoming a “task” for me, and I began disliking it. I now journal only when there’s something in my mind or when I have a lot of ideas of if I’m struggling.
- A newsletter a month: Crushed it!
- I initially started out thinking that I’d write and share only once a month, but then I realized that if there’s anything I wanted to keep doing, it was this. So even when life got in the way or something happened, even when I was giving up on everything else, I kept writing and sharing Figuring Things Out every week.
- Gym workouts every week: Half passed.
- I didn’t go to the gym every week but I made sure to workout everyday. I think that counts.
- Grow my personal audience: Failed.
- This was one of the absurdest goals I had. I wanted to grow on all major platforms and I was on that path until I realized it was not a good idea.
- “To write a great book, you must first become the book.” – Naval.
- I want to be a genuine companion for all the people who chose to walk and grow alongside me. Being a social media influencer was not the way.
- Grow HighApproach (my blog)’s revenue by 100%: Failed.
- In fact, I quit High Approach.
- I realized that running HA wasn’t really worth it. The entire revenue model of HA relied on Google’s search results. When ChatGPT and Gemini came along and started scrapping all the websites, if I wanted I could keep going, but the return on my time investment wasn’t practical to keep going.
- More about this realization in 2025 goals.
- Publish a research paper: Half passed.
- So I wrote a paper, submitted it to some publications, and got rejected from all of them. Then I reviewed what I had done and realized it wasn’t really anything that could create any impact. So scratched that paper and topic.
2025 Goals
So, one of the most important realizations that I had in 2024 was the fact that I don’t need to do a lot of things.
This realization was because of two things:
- The book “Slow Productivity” by Cal Newport (author of Deep Work)
- Tim Ferriss highlighting the importance of being effective rather than efficient.
There are always some things that we can prioritize and do that would make all the other things either easier or irrelevant.
For example, my reason for wanting to grow on all social media platforms was to reach more people. That was me being efficient.
To be effective, I began focusing more on the people I already had access to, which is you guys. A lot of people subscribed to this newsletter through referral.
Also instead of growing on all social media platforms, I realized growing on just YouTube would give me the most ROI. So that’s where I’m focusing.
Similarly, getting an internship would make growing HighApproach or any other side hustle, at least right now, irrelevant.
So here are my goals for 2025:
- At least one YT video every other week — The subscriber count is not in my control. What I can control is making videos. Regardless of how the channel is doing, I will make one video every other week. Doing weekly videos could be hindered by “life getting in the way” or something, but once every other week is manageable. If I can do it weekly, great, but at least one video every other week. If you’d like to join, click here.
- Get an internship — Okay, now I’m contradicting myself. I said that the outcome is not in my control. What I mean here is that I’m going to do everything to make it possible that I get an internship by the end of 2025. So that means learning things, building things/projects, expanding my connections, and much more.
- Get fit (again) — Even if I’m able to go to the gym only once of twice a week, I will. I think I might start using the gym at my university after/before classes instead of going to my regular gym near room. That will reduce friction.
- Extras — Some additional things that I want to do/maintain:
- Weekly Figuring Things Out newsletters
- Complete my current research paper
- Take more photos
- Not ignoring living the present when I’m working on building my future.
That’s it. These are the goals that will make all the other goals irrelevant.
2025 is like 3 days away. Wow.
I hope 2025 will be a great year for you. There will always be ups and downs. Some things will work, a lot will fail, but as a whole I hope your year is filled with growth and well-being.
Thank you for being around and taking the time to read this issue.
I’ll see you in 2025.
Take care bud!
Warmly,
Suraj
