I decided not to turn these into concrete goals, but here are general areas that I’d like to invest more time and attention into in the coming year.
Take care of my body: This definitely includes exercising more, but more broadly, I’d like to pay attention to how I’m feeling. For example, this year I realized sugar was causing me to crash hard, so I’ve cut it out as much as I can during the day (and save it for dessert).
Exercise makes me feel great, so I need to discover which types of movement work best for me.
Write more: After struggling to get back into the practice for a few years, I started First Draft Club as a way to force myself to write – and I’m now on a 20+ week streak of sharing something publicly.
I want to keep pushing myself here. Quantity leads to quality, so I’m not upset about the consistency, but I do want to take some bigger swings. At the end of 2025, I hope to have a few essays I’m proud of.
Read more: This past year wasn’t as good for reading. I spent too much time online, and most of the “reading” I did was short-form. In 2025, I’m hoping to carve out more time for deep reading.
Since I tend to finish fiction books more consistently, I'll use novels to rekindle my joy of reading. For non-fiction topics, I'll focus on essays and articles, which better match my learning style than books with a lot of fluff.
Engage with my local community: While I've built a strong online community, this year I’d like to deepen my real-world connections in New York City. This means connecting with both people and places – from neighborhoods to local institutions.
I want to be a more active presence in my neighborhood – getting to know the baristas at my local coffee shop, showing up to weekly game nights at the bar on the corner, and becoming a "regular" in a few places.
Beyond the neighborhood level, I want to build on my growing interest in city politics. While I’ve started paying more attention to what’s going on, this year I want to put "boots on the ground" and find ways to contribute to positive change in my city.
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these are wonderful resolutions, thank you for sharing. I'm grateful to have connected with you early in 2024, have learned a lot following your journey throughout the year. hope our paths cross locally, irl, in NYC in 2025
My resolutions for this year: - Take care of my body - Write more - Read more - Engage with my local community https://paragraph.xyz/@mark/my-2025-resolutions
hooray for local community! if you're serious, consider taking our program also happy to chat about this https://cabin.city/accelerator
I’ve been meaning to explore the Cabin ecosystem! Would love to chat
Looking ahead, @mark is shaping the coming year with intentions to focus on well-being through exercise and mindful habits, commit to a consistent writing practice while envisioning impactful essays, rekindle the love for deep reading, and enhance community engagement in NYC. Exciting goals await!