my feb reset | 2024 reflections 2025 intentions

January flew by and honestly, I didn't do much to reflect on last year or set new habits. So I'm using February to slow down, reset, and think about what I want for 2025. Besides, it's better late than never. Why are they over there? That's so. Oh, because the sunset was on that side. Oh, my God. Yes. Camera. Reception. Ah. Hello. Wait. That was a really nice sunrise to catch, right? No, I mean. Oh, it's hot chocolate. Thank you. Just a year ago, I was the one standing here nervous, excited, hoping I made the right choice. And now I'm the one welcoming in the new class. It really is so crazy how we came full circle. My computer just ran out of battery. So I think now it's a good time to kind of review the 2024 Reflections and 2025 Intentions I wrote down. So I think the one thing I'm really proud of, even though it's quite small, is being adjusted to my life in Pittsburgh. So I think I had a really rough time kind of acclimating to this place because it was really different from my life in my freshman year. And just being a transfer student in a school especially like Carnegie Mellon, that's quite. I wouldn't say it's antisocial, but it's not the most social place. But I think I found my people and I can honestly say I do enjoy school life right now. So. So e next. Personal growth in terms of friendships and also learning how to prioritize. So I used to have a pretty weird mindset where I valued my self worth based on how many people I knew. And this is really unproductive because I ended up having a lot of. Just a lot of acquaintances, but no close friends and that I feel like it's quite counterintuitive to how friendships work. I mean, there's so many studies saying that someone can only know 200 people at a time. And even then, like you can only truly know maybe five to 10 people at a time. So I think I learned how to cut down on friends that, you know, don't really add to my life. And I also stopped feeling so negative about not knowing everyone and their moms. And the other thing I was saying is just prioritizing in general. So I used to feel FOMO for everything. I would tire myself out going to every single event. But now I'm learning to prioritize things that matter to me and contributes to my mission. Now that doesn't mean I don't go to random things anymore. I still love spontaneous activities, but it's really important to put your own time first because we all have limited amount of time and. And we have to learn how to use it wisely. Next is. I felt a lot more productive this year and I created much better life balance. So at one point I felt like I was always chasing for balance or just chasing something and felt like I never had enough time to do everything I want. But especially the start of 2025, I found that I was able to kind of complete everything that I put on my task list. And that's because I've been. Well, first of all, I spent a lot less time on my phone nowadays. And number two, I really prioritize getting things off my checklist. Before, my checklist was just there, but now it's like something I actively check all the time and ensure that everything gets crossed off by the end of the day. I'm also really, really proud about running a 10 kilometer race. So this happened in September of 2024 and that inspired me to keep running. Now It's February of 2025. I could say I could run a 10k pretty easily. It's a pretty simple run for me. And I guess this leads me to my 2025 intention. I really want to run a half marathon. So there's going to be a Pittsburgh Half Marathon in May and I'm actively training for it, doing long runs every Sunday and doing treadmill and interval runs on the weekdays. My next 2025 intention is taking care of mental and physical health. So I feel like I've always been a really negative person. I thought that negativity is what drives people to do things, and I guess in a way it could. But I don't think it's the healthiest way of doing so because I end up being going into a little spiral. And when I'm feeling disappointed in myself, I end up falling back into those bad habits that is causing me to feel negative about myself. So it becomes a little bit of a spiral that I could never get out of. Also, I want to continue reducing my screen time. So I already mentioned that my screen time went down a lot. It's actually because of this app called One Sec. I'm not sponsored, but I've been telling everyone about it. Here, let me show you guys. Give it one sec. Okay. It makes you take a breath for six seconds. And in the six seconds, you kind of like reevaluate your life choice. Like, damn. Like, damn. Do I really want to go on Instagram right now? And after you take this deep breath, let's say, I do want to go on Instagram. It kind of asks you for your intention, like, what do you want to do? Do you want to post something? Do you want to relax? And then it allows you to track the reasons why you're going on Instagram. And then you can set a time limit before it sets up another intervention. For me, the max amount of time I myself on Instagram at a time is 10 minutes. You can set it longer, but I think 10 minutes is a good time. Oh, okay. This one's a little bit of a strange one. But I want to be okay with quietness. So I have a habit of always having an AirPod plugged in. And it kind of, you know, I. It kind of distracts me from the real world. I'm always listening to music or a podcast, but I'm never really listening to myself or my surroundings. And I think a big part of living intentionally is kind of being aware of your surroundings. So I want to stop plugging my ears so often. Next, I want to read more. So at the end of 2024, I read two books, which is a lot more than I usually do. But I really want to prioritize reading books and also newsletters, opinion papers, essays. I think there's a lot of value to listening to other people's words because when you're just doing your own thing, it's always an echo chamber of your own opinions, and you don't really grow. And the last thing I wrote here is actually the most simple intention out of all these is. But it's to have a better morning routine. So I used to always try to wake up 30 minutes before I have to go somewhere, and I'm always rushing around, and it doesn't really put me in a good headspace. It also makes me eat too fast, and I just don't feel great after leaving the house. I want to kind of practice slower mornings where, you know, I give more. I give myself more time to get ready and, you know, just calm down before the busy day ahead. So I just really want to instill good morning habits, like not going on my phone immediately after waking up or maybe doing some morning stretches, reading a newsletter or two, waiting, like, drinking water immediately after waking up, because our bodies are made at 70% of water, by the way. And, yeah, so, yeah, these are my reflections and intentions, and I really hope that I can stick to it and, you know, hold myself accountable. Sam I don't know why I'm sitting on the floor, but it's Thursday now. I finished Quite a lot of work today. This was my to do list for today and I'm basically almost done to all of them. So I'm gonna go treat myself and go watch a little movie. I'm gonna go watch the Brutalist. It's gonna be brutal because I checked online, it's gonna be three hours long. But you know, it's been nominated for so many Oscars and it's probably, probably for a reason. Right. So I'm going to go bring myself on a solo movie date. I haven't done that in a while and you know, I think it. That's really. We should go on more solo movie dates. The movie just ended. It is now 11:11 make a wish. But wow, that was. That was a journey. It was three and a half hours long. There was an intermission. I felt myself age in there. I feel too long for a solidate. I don't know. Now I feel just quite. I don't regret it, but I feel very unproductive. Like most of my night is gone. Amazing movie though. But most of my night is gone. So I've had an extremely long day today and I've been really sleepy deprived. I've been waking up at seven in the morning for no reason whatsoever. And I just have not been going to bed at a reasonable time. So I am really not feeling well mentally or physically. But before I like went to sleep tonight, I wanted to do something that will help me kind of wind down. That's not watching YouTube videos because I don't know, it's just. I don't. I want some time to. For myself to do something that is for me. And a few days ago I hosted a letters of love event where we kind of drew postcards for our loved ones. And I started working on this one that I made for my family. That's my family. I just wanted to finish it with some watercolor. And yeah, I'm not good at watercolor, but it'll be a fun little event to do. Being away from home makes you see it differently. The little things you never thought about twice. The familiar voices, the usual routines, suddenly mean so much more. So I'm making this postcard not just to say hello, but to send a piece of me back home. Because no matter how far I go, a part of me will always be there. Done. This is the final product. I'm actually pretty proud of it. I think it's quite cute. I was able to capture some of the essence of watercolor. I'm gonna mail this to them tomorrow. I'm not sure how much that's gonna cost because it's international shipping, but I'm excited. It's so cute. I don't know. This is my first time making a watercolor postcard.