My 2024 wrapped
Using TikTok trends to reflect and plan 2025
December is my favorite month of the year. It's when I get to catch up with all my favorite people, it includes Christmas, and I always do a lot of overthinking, reflecting, and making plans for the future.
This year I used two TikTok trends to reflect on the past year. (I know, but in my defense, I had a flu.)
I also added some actual goals for 2025 at the end.
1. Vision board trend
Perplexity says that “The TikTok vision board trend is a popular manifestation practice. The hashtag #visionboard amassed over 6 billion views. This trend involves creating a visual representation of one's goals and aspirations for the upcoming year.”
My vision board for 2025 includes a lot of hikes, cross-country skiing, and walks, either with friends, or alone. It has a lot of coffee, hard work, and stress because I feel I didn’t grind to my full potential in 2024. I feel like I succeeded in a lot of things which means I need to set harder goals and fail more. I also want to buy a projector to have movie nights with friends, listen to music and podcasts more, and write write write. Then I added a pattern of my Ralph Lauren scarf because I am still cold and plan to exist only wrapped in multiple layers of clothes in 2025. I also added pics of San Francisco. 2025 will be intensive in terms of spending time there - our startup has headquarters there. It reminds me I have to answer my tax lawyer so I solve my complicated tax residency situation and avoid going to prison. And also I included gym and boing, my two sources of staying sane most of the time.
If you want to create a vision board too, I used Canva, which is my go-to tool for almost everything blogging.
2. Ins and Outs for 2025
This trend is all over TikTok, and half the time you can't tell if people are being serious or not. Apparently being informed about world events is 'IN'? Well, who knew! Anyway, I decided to lean into the absurdity and put my own spin on these Ins and Outs.
Anyway, here are my Ins and Outs for 2025, comments below.
Ins:
Boxing as cardio - Got back into boxing at the end of 2024, both in SF and Prague, and I'm hooked again just like a few years ago. (Don't ask who is my trainer). It's such a complete workout - you need the fitness, the strength, and the mental game too.
Weirdmaxxing - If you're in the San Francisco startup bubble, you might have heard this one. To me, it's all weirdmaxxing means embracing your authentic self.
Shameless promo - I get so awkward about posting on LinkedIn or sharing my blog posts - basically anything about myself. Time to get over it. Pretty sure when I'm older, I'll regret not doing more "cringe" stuff. I mean, who really cares, we all die one day.
AI automations - I've got a whole arsenal of tools that can handle the boring stuff. 2025 is the year I put them to work. Goal is to automate myself right out of the job market and into permanent vacation mode.
Stress and deadlines - 2024 was almost too comfortable. I work better with some level of pressure (maybe it’s because of ADHD). Grind grind grind.
Podcasts > movies - The only "podcasts" I listened to in 2024 were voice messages from my friends (which I'm obsessed with). I can never focus on movies anyway - I literally have to read plot summaries and still end up confused - so might as well switch to podcasts and be confused about cooler topics.
Delegating - Started bringing in advisors in 2024, and that's only the beginning. Looking to work with more contractors, consultants, trainers, and advisors in 2025 - it just makes everything run smoother. Plus, I need to get better at asking for help, something I've never been great at.
Expensive latte once a week - I had a great solo coffee walk with a very sweet and unhealthy Christmas latte from The Miners that I want to repeat that more often.
Asking questions - I feel bad because this year I had a lot of attention on me, gave some talks, was teaching, and people asked about the “exciting startup life” in US. I love asking people questions and listening to them, so I want to do that more in 2025.
Protein - I have to admit I sometimes forgot/didn’t find time to eat enough in 2024. So 2025 is going to be the year of bulking, and eating enough protein.
Outs:
Learning everything - When we started building a software company, I was the only non-technical person for a long time and learned some coding skills, but definitely not much. I am so busy that I want to finally admit that I won’t be spending 70% of my time coding, not even 50%, not even 30%. We've got fantastic engineers for that. Instead of trying to be decent at everything, I'm embracing my role as the "queen of outsourcing" and trying to be great at a few things.
Amazon - I ordered too many Amazon packages in US in 2024, we just don’t have that in Czech Republic. Those Halloween candles probably weren't an essential buy.
FOMO-driven decisions - No comment on this. Sometimes in 2024 I thought I liked things, but they turned out to be pure fear of missing out.
Pretending to have fun & fit in - Often have this nagging feeling that something's off, that people don't like me, that everyone else is more capable. Sometimes tried to force myself to fit in. This is my reminder that I don't need to do that.
Phone in my bedroom - Enough is enough, I ordered alarm clock so I can leave my phone outside when I sleep.
Sharing knowledge for free - Planning to put more blog posts behind a paywall. It feels strange thinking about paid subscribers, but why not? What's the worst that could happen?
Consuming Twitter - I unfollowed most accounts I was following before, not because they were bad, but because so much noise on all the social media apps… The shitstorm around US presidential elections were the last straw. I want to post on Twitter, not consume it.
Fear of doing taxes - I hate paperwork, admin tasks, operations - all of it. Moving between two countries made taxes especially stressful last year. Really glad I hired a professional, and now I'm ready to tackle 2025 taxes head-on.
3. Goals for 2025
A few very specific goals, mixing work, personal life, hobbies, health, everything.
Grow both paid and unpaid subscribers by at least 500% on Substack (I know it sounds like a lot, but I recently switched from Medium, so I don’t have that big audience here yet.)
Set up a CRM for our startup and answer very particular questions (which I cannot disclose publicly)
Interview at least 5 people for my blog
Achieve certain metrics for our startup (which I also cannot disclose publicly)
Attend at least one Spartan Race Beast
Create a new Mathematics course
Make Twitter post with at least 200k views
Pick and buy an apartment (I have been so lazy to deal with this)
Fail at least one big thing
A random thing that I succeed in and add it as one of the goals retrospectively to feel better about myself.
Happy New Year, and I will be excited if you comment on what is in your vision board, your ins and outs, and goals! :)
T.
Sign me up for gym, all the outdoor funs, and movie nights!