Everything I'm Leaving Behind in 2024

Dec 31, 2024

8 min read

With the new year, I'm in major need of change in my life. I struggled my way to the finish line this year and I refuse to do the same next year.

At the start of 2024, I was thriving, and I mean truly thriving, but somewhere along the way I completely lost the plot. I was so driven to succeed in my writing and was actually putting in the time and effort to grow my name in the writer's space, but I completely lost the motivation. This happened for a couple different reasons that I will expand on throughout this post.

Now, don't get me wrong, a lot of amazing things happened in 2024 and I have no intentions of downplaying them one bit, but I could've done more. I'm my own worst enemy sometimes and my harshest critic--in writing and in life. I know where my downfalls are and where my strengths are, but I still learned quite a bit about myself this year.

With each passing year, I've wanted to be better, but now, I'm actually going to make it happen.

1 | The Constant Need to Put Others First

I had to put this one first, because it has caused me entirely too many issues my whole life. I have this deep-seated need to help people and I'm fully aware it comes from years of trauma, but that's a completely different discussion. This past year, however, I have almost used it as an excuse to not focus on my own things and completely ignored the way it has caused me nothing but trouble.

When you finally come to realize that some people in your life only want you around for what you can do for them, so many relationships start to crumble. This year, I threw myself into a mess just like this. I spent way too many hours, days, even weeks of my life helping others that had no intentions of ever helping me in return. I was a pawn for them, and when I was no longer useful, I was discarded.

And honestly, I saw it coming.

Even though there was a giant neon sign screaming at me to not do it, I did it anyways. I've always equated my own self-worth to how much of myself I'm willing to chip away for other people. The mindset that your worth is equivalent to how much you 'help' those around you is so incredibly detrimental to ones own health, growth, and self-worth.

Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't help people, but never do so at the cost of yourself. Especially for those who would never do the same for you.

For myself, moving forward I just simply refuse to do it anymore. I come first. I have spent hours and hours researching and learning how to build a platform on the internet, but I've always used that knowledge to help others grow. It's time to use all that knowledge for myself and that's exactly what I'm doing in 2025. It will be my year to grow and truly make something of myself.

2 | Making Excuses

This might be the hardest one to stop. Like I said, I'm my own worst enemy, I will place a million roadblocks in my own way and just throw in the towel because of it. I can largely attribute this to my lack of self-motivation skills. I used to have them. I used to be such a go-getter, but after covid I watched that fade in the distance.

I used the above point--helping others--as my main excuse this year. Somehow, I convinced myself that the work I was doing for others was actually important--it wasn't. I thought that if I was willing to spend the time giving to other people one day they would return the favor, but of course, I was wrong.

You and only you actually care about your own goals and dreams. No one else will ever care about them like you do, so only you can make them a reality.

I started the year off strong though. I published a few books and I was on quite the roll, but I lost it all somewhere along the way. The excuses started pouring in and I haven't published a single thing in months.

MONTHS!!!

Not only have I not published anything, I have barely done any writing. Well, none that I would actually consider publishing. I lost so much of my motivation and excuse after excuse poured in. The only person this hurt was me and it's time that stops. No more excuses, or crappy reasoning as to why I can't get something done. I know I can do it. I know I can make progress in every single one of my goals and dreams. I know I can be better.

And I'm going to do it. No more excuses allowed!

3 | Writing in the Perspective of Men

Okay, before any of the men reading this think I simply hate men, I promise I don't. I started my author career writing entirely from the perspective of men. I was so engrossed in the world of mm romance that when I finally decided to become a published author, I immediately jumped into writing the same.

I would be lying if I said it's not a lucrative genre. With the help of Kindle Vella, I was making hundreds of dollars as a brand-new author writing mm romance stories. That is entirely unheard of for the majority of self-published indie authors. I thought I had found my place in the world of published authors, but when the story ideas dried up and Kindle Vella announced they were closing up shop, the money dwindled away...quickly. Now, I'm left with pennies every month in royalties and barely anything published.

And that's okay. It humbled me quite a bit.

By now you may be asking, but what does this have to do with writing in the perspective of men. I could just write more mm romances, or maybe try writing better ones. Or switch genres and still write in the perspective of men. But honestly, I don't want to. As a woman, there are so many experiences and emotions that I have felt that I can use in my writing that have been left out because I've been writing about men. Do men go through a lot of the same issues, sure, but I've never experienced them as a man.

My womanhood is something I can use to better my writing. So, for the next year I will only be writing from the perspective of women. I will not be limiting myself on genre either. If I choose to write a fantasy, I will. Or a thriller, why the heck not. Maybe even a sapphic romance, because I definitely should.

Writing helps me process a lot of things in my life and the trauma I've experienced. I'm starting to feel that for myself the best way to continue this is to write characters that I feel can mostly relate to this--and that would largely be female characters.

Is this always going to be the case? No. I will write about and from the perspective of men again, especially since the book I want to get traditionally published has a male lead. However, for the next year, I will be writing in a multitude of different genres, but the main focus will be strong, sometimes crazy, women.

4 | Writing Smut

GASP!!!

Don't get me wrong, I still love smut. It's what got me started in my writing journey, but I've used it as a crutch. Just because I can write a halfway decent sex scene, I've allowed it to overtake my writing. And quickly frankly, I'm bored with it.

I want to move away from open door sex scenes and replace it with fade to black. The tension and build-up is something I genuinely enjoy far more than the actual sex scene. But, I also don't feel like my stories need romance to drive the plot. So, for the next year, I'm challenging myself to not write any smut.

I want to explore a variety of genres and I will continue to write romance, but I'm going to leave out all the explicit sex scenes. My desire to write outside of the smut genre has been growing quite a bit over the last few months and I think it's partially what has caused my massive writers block.

I've built this image around myself, within my friends group, and in my community that I'm a smut writer, but I'm not. I'm a writer who happened to write smut and this is an important distinction. I backed myself into a corner thinking I needed to live up to and continue this image that I created, but I took a few steps back I realized it was I who created it and only I who can dismantle it.

In 2025, I'm simply going to be a writer.

5 | A Complete Lack of Self-Care

The irony of this being the last one on the list is not lost on me. Self-care is something I very rarely prioritize and even in a blog post about bettering myself I've still manage to put it last on the list.

I need to do better.

You could definitely say the first two points fit in this category as well, but when I say self-care I mean the actual act of caring about myself. I check all the important boxes--showering daily, brushing my teeth daily, eating vegetables, etc. But that's where it ends.

I very rarely exercise or actually eat healthy on a consistent basis. I have no desire to check the scale every day, so I will not be giving myself a numerical goal for weight loss, nor will I be counting a single calorie.

My goal is to simply feel better.

Eat foods that give me energy, take walks with my family, get out more, and genuinely have a more positive outlook on life. Smile and laugh more. Do more things that bring me joy, regardless of what other's might think about it. Dance around the house. Sing in the shower. Maybe even do some yoga.

There's so many things that self-care covers and I'm going to try them all. Okay, maybe not all of them, but the ones that bring me true happiness. Defeating depression is like the final boss, but I am determined to look my depression right in the face and tell it to f*ck right off. To do so, I need to learn to simply take care of myself. Whatever that may look like.

Final Thoughts

I can sit here and list all things, one by one, that I want to remove from my life, but we would be here for an eternity. I left it the 5 most important ones that I feel I can actually accomplish. I refuse to set the bar too high for myself. Why set myself up for failure? The entire point of this is to be successful.

AND I WILL BE SUCCESSFUL!

Day by day, little by little, I will become a better version of myself. It won't be easy and some day I will probably think I'm absolutely insane for thinking I even deserve it, but I do. I truly truly do deserve it.

So, tell me in the comments what you're leaving behind in 2024!

Happy New Year!

Thanks for reading!

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