I have a confession to make. As I got older Christmas is no longer my favorite holiday. Surprisingly it became New Year’s (I also love Thanksgiving, but hate the history of it). While I don’t buy into a whole “New Year, New Me”, it’s exciting to see where life will take me. I always see constantly about how to change your life in six months but not enough acknowledgment of the background things to do to prepare.
Usually, my thoughts of New Year’s start in October because my birthday happens to be that month. Besides that, they always say October is the best month to set intentions that it’s like the month of laying the groundwork for the months to come. I thought that was a beautiful way to put it, but this year is a lot different for me.
Maybe it’s blinding optimism but something feels different about the year to come and I already am starting my process of planning it and have been since the middle of August. So if you’re reading this you’re probably reading this when you’re starting your own planning or maybe you’re like me and want to get ahead, so here are some things I am doing to prepare for 2024.
Forecasting with Astrology and Numerology
If you couldn’t tell from my most recent post, I am heavily into different aspects of spirituality. I have written 2 posts so far to help people understand the basics of chart reading. Before setting my goals and intentions for the new year, the first thing I like to do is look at the theme of my personal year, protection year, and the themes of the new year.
I have a late birthday and even though my last birthday was a big birthday ( I turned 21), this one is even bigger. My golden birthday is this year and I will be in that energy from October 22nd, 2023 to October 22nd, 2024.
According to protection years, when you turn 22 you are in your 11th house year. According to astrology, the 11th house profection year is associated with the house of community. This means that during this year, I may experience a heightened focus on relationships, friendships, and social networks (which include social media). It's a year of joining groups, expanding networks, and building social connections. It's also a time to focus on social causes and community involvement.
The 11th house is traditionally associated with the sign of Aquarius, which is known for its humanitarian and idealistic qualities. During the 11th house profection year, individuals may feel called to embrace these qualities and work towards creating positive change in their community. They may also feel a sense of responsibility towards their social circle and feel compelled to help others in need.
While it is associated with the sign of Aquarius, it is also important to acknowledge your personal ruler. My 11th house ruler is Taurus. Taurus is associated with stability, security, and material possessions. In the context of the 11th house, this could manifest as a focus on building long-lasting relationships and a sense of security within one's social network. There may also be a desire to create a strong foundation for community involvement and social causes.
The placements I have in this house/ sign are Part of Fortune (represents a person's overall well-being, happiness, and good fortune. It is also said to be a point of ease and success in one's life, and can indicate areas of life where one may experience good luck or blessings) and Sedna (associated with the collective unconscious and our deepest fears and desires)
The crazy part after discovering all that is, as a 21-year-old who officially graduated from college, I started my first job out of college in August 2023. My boss is a Taurus, and the concept of our work is Financial education ( which if you know the sign of Taurus is traditionally associated with the 2nd house, as it governs material possessions, financial stability, and values) and the work we are doing is in order to have financial education to be more normalized in BIPOC communities and lower-income communities. One thing I do notice is I always experience themes 2-3 months before I enter the next Profection year.
I also joined a discord community, where I’ve been helping out as a moderator ( although I haven’t run events yet since I am still adjusting to the changes in my job) and working on our podcast, Adult and Slay.
I still have my own podcast called A Little Atypical, I will admit having a group podcast has been holding me more accountable. I also am planning to revise all my content and start on my content creator journey. For the longest time, it took me a while to admit how badly I wanted to be one but something about this upcoming year gave me faith to really try to get over my fear of being seen ( or better known as the fear of being judged).
Now branching into Numerology:
My personal year is 4 is associated with practicality, hard work, and stability. It's a year for laying a solid foundation and making steady progress towards your goals. This is a year to prioritize organization, discipline, and responsibility.
The year 2024, which is numerology year 8, is associated with themes of power, wealth, and abundance. This may be a good year to focus on career advancement, financial stability, and making strategic investments. It's also a year to take charge of your life and make decisions with confidence and assertiveness.
I should also add my life path is the number 8. When doing research it said what is written below
As an individual with a life path number of 8 during a numerology year of 8, this upcoming year may hold significant themes of power, wealth, and abundance for you. This could be a good year to focus on career advancement, financial stability, and making strategic investments. It's also a year to take charge of your life and make decisions with confidence and assertiveness. It seems like you are already taking steps to prepare for this year and aligning your goals with the themes of the year. Good luck with your preparations!
Something about age 22 and the year 2024 just feels aligned. Obviously, I know these things are just tools and I essentially have to be one to follow through with aligned actions to really make my year.
Vision board/ Mood Board
This is the second thing I did. I like to start with making a digital mood board for my phone wallpaper but I also plan to maybe attempt to make a physical one this year. Moveboards are a good way to start because when you picture your life you want to use images that make you feel something and also of people with similar traits to you so you can imagine yourself in that space. So on my vision board, I’ve placed images of what I want to happen for me this upcoming year like a passport, groups of friends, photo shoots, screen graphs of follower counts I want to hit and so much more.
I feel like the mood board is one of the most important parts of the process because what happens after the New Year’s rush is people tend to fall off their goals but by having a vision board you can reference it throughout the year. This year whenever I was feeling frustrated with school I just looked at my vision board and reminded myself why I wanted to just complete it and not drop out even though some thoughts were very tempting at times. Or when I didn’t feel like creating anything because I didn’t feel inspired seeing my vision or reminded me of the life I was trying to build and it’s like a gentle reminder to keep pushing momentum when the waves of insecurity and uncertainty hit.
2024 Bingo
I saw this a lot last year in the winter and I thought to myself wow what a fun way to look at the things I want to happen this year. So I made my own personal abbreviation for bingo.
The B stands for Bizarre (as in the craziest thing that could happen to me)
The I stands for ideals (things that my ideal self would do and if I do them I am living as her)
The N stands for Nurturing ( Things that would nurture my growth)
The G stands for Goals (things I really want to accomplish in the short term)
The O stands for opportunities (things I want to do to set myself up for my long-term goals)
I made those words but you can make it your own based on what you want to accomplish. Use words like blessings, books, blog posts, interests, investments, Improvements, impressive, non-negotiable, network, next big project, etc.
I created my template on Canva and just redesigned the many templates. But before I did that I planned out what each box would say in my journal that I’m trying to finish off before I turn 22. Personally, I think planning on paper will save you the most time.
Word of the Year & Themes of the Month
Word of the year has been something I’ve been doing since the end of 2019 as I was inspired by the Pretty Basic podcast back then.
My words of the year have included
2023: Consistency
2022: Balance
2021: Progress
2020: Unapologetic
I started creating a list of words that evoked something in me but I haven’t selected anything officially. My options are:
Conquest
Shameless
Transcendental
Abundant
Enchanting
Make sure if you do this the word really resonates with you, really take the time and choose the word based on what feels right. The next part is something I got inspired to do mostly because I was using the 12-week year concept for that year. I’ll give an example from my 2023 list:
January: Health
February: Creativity
March: Academics
April: Connection
May: Reflection
June: Content
July: Travel
August: Confidence
September: Career
October: Celebration
November: Spiritual
December: Recharge
I most likely will do this again but this time add a lot more intention to this by looking at my personal months (numerology) and seeing what I can do to set intentions because I feel like my months were very random and not at all aligned because I was a last minute thought I had at the end of January.
Modern-day icon Presentation
This last one is just an idea I had but I had a thought while doing a project during the Fall 2022 semester. For one of my classes, I had to make a slide presentation on an important figure in history for my working women course (I chose Madam CJ Walker) and I thought this would be an amazing and unique manifesting technique so I put together a list of slide titles I want to use for this idea. The idea is what would you like someone to say about you and your life from an outside perspective and this takes 5 - 10 years from the time you make it.
Background pages- Includes things like date of birth ( Do not put a death date, please do not put that on yourself), where you were born, family history/ background, and basically all the things you would want people to know
What were your accomplishments? - Create a list of things you want to be known for
Create a timeline - This is to highlight how the things you want to be known for playout
The impact - This is giving intention to things you want to do, it helps you remember why they are important
How they did that- this is where you come up with aligned actions and it’s like a plan to accomplish those things
Key learnings- What do you want people to take away from your success story
Conclusion- What makes this figure (you iconic)- this is how you want to be perceived by people
Some people may find this narcissistic but I am a firm believer in being the author of your own narrative and I can’t think of a better way to do that than this idea.
I know this seems early to post and I once did say I would try to stop oversharing on my blog, but since I stopped writing it felt like my writing lost touch with the thing that made it the most unique. So I want to create all content from a place of authenticity even it means losing the structure I once set in place. Structure can be developed again but uniqueness can’t be replicated.
If you try any of these ideas, please let me know how you enjoyed it as an activity. I might do a part 2 closet to the wintertime.
Thank you for reading and if you have anything you want to see more of, be sure to comment with suggestions or email me. Remember to subscribe to my YouTube channel, and follow my TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter to connect and stay up to date. I am excited about my next blog post so make sure you come back. Until then, there’s a lot more content on my YouTube channel. I hope you have a good day, evening, or night.
Until next time,
xoxo Lay 💋