Drafting my New Year’s Resolutions for 2025

2024 is coming to an end, and as always, it is time to reflect on 2024 and come up with a fresh set of New Year’s resolutions. 

I didn’t write a list of resolutions for 2024. I can’t recall precisely why I didn’t do it. Maybe it is because I did not want to be tethered to any rigid habits or goals that I would want to accomplish in 2024. Or maybe so much has happened in 2023, that I just want to take life easy in 2024. 2023 was a year of change. Moving to my new house, adjusting to my new lifestyle, and charting a way forward living an independent life. 

So it is natural that I just want to enjoy the fruits of my labour and and just coast through life in 2024. 

I feel that the honeymoon phase is over and that it is time to get to business and really reflect what I want to achieve in 2025. 

For now, I am leaning towards introspection. I want to spend more time reflecting on my life so far, reflecting on my mental state and hopefully gain greater insight to my own motivations, beliefs and experience. I want to discover what makes me really happy and pursue it with greater focus and clarity. 

I also want to get back to the habit of reading. I want to read more books than ever before in 2025. I did not achieve my reading goals in 2023 and I am doubtful that I reach it again in 2024 despite lowering this year’s targets.  But things will change in 2025. I am going to set ambitious new reading targets and do my best at achieving them. 

I want to regain my health and fitness. In 2024, I wasn’t following my fitness regime anymore. I am by no means unhealthy or unfit, but I can clearly feel that my stamina is going downhill. I have weights at home that I use them regularly. It is my stamina and my cardio that I haven’t been paying attention this year. I spent so many years honing my fitness and maintaining my stamina, that I think it is time to get back to the gym and hitting that treadmill and row machine once more. However, I need to remind myself that I will need to take it slow at the beginning, before increasing my pace once more. 

No more excuses for skipping on cardio. 

I will spend less money collecting Magic the Gathering cards, way less money. In 2024, when I started my new hobby playing Magic the Gathering, I was hooked. It was like gambling. I couldn’t stop buying booster packs, and collector packs and going to pre-release events, spending so much money on cards. I spent so much that I made an ultimatum to myself; I will stop buying more cards in 2025. I will go cold turkey. I will continue playing it with my friends, but when it comes to collecting new and upcoming sets, I will not buy them. I will however, continue to make new commander decks from time to time, but it will be few and far in between. I have enough commander decks to last me a lifetime of playing Magic with my friends.  

I will make more time spending time with my friends playing board games. I have a core group of friends who are hardcore board game enthusiasts. They have so many board games in their collection that many of them have not been played yet, much less open. So in 2025, I am making a commitment to myself to encourage them to set time during the weekends and have a go at it on some of the board games in their collection. 

I want to do a solo trip in 2025. It’s been many years since I did a solo trip. I was much younger back then. The itch to just book a plane ticket to anywhere and just travel is back. So in 2025, I will plan a solo trip (could be anywhere) and just rest, relax and enjoy the journey. In addition to that, I would also like to take several smaller trips, rather than one big one. With my spending on Magic cards tapering off in 2025, I will have more disposable income to spend on experiences rather than stuff. This will make travelling to more places in 2025 a lot more feasible. 

I want to buy one more luxury watch from Omega, and this will be my grail watch. 

I talked about how my enthusiasm for luxury watches was rekindled in recent months due to a friend who was similarly into the same hobby, so much so that I was negatively influenced into getting not one, but three luxury watches in a span of 6 months (a Tudor Black Bay Ceramic, a Seamaster Aquaterra and Speedmaster Professional from Omega). Add that to the financial burden of already spending so much on Magic cards that it decimated my savings goal for 2024. But it’s ok, I deserve to splurge a little after all I have been through. After all, I did mention that I did not stick to any goals or resolutions for 2024 and I was merely freewheeling in life. But that has to stop, but I don’t want to stop my watch collecting hobby just yet. 

There is still on more watch from Omega that would like to add to my collection in 2025, and that is the Omega Speedmaster, First Omega in Space (FOIS) edition. This will be my grail watch and the watch to end watch collecting for the foreseeable future. Once I acquire that watch, there is no desire for me to collect other watches, especially from other watch brands. My collection will be considered complete and whole. 

In 2025, I want to commit to journaling more often and at a more regular basis. With my iPad mini, this could be the catalyst that will dedicate more of my spare time to just sit down, reflect and journal about my life. 

There may be more things that I want to achieve in 2025. I need to give more thought to it. But once I have decided on them, I will post updates right here.