After returning from Christmas travel to my family in Chicagoland, I am at my desk. I have my third cup of coffee and my headphones on, trying to get some focused work in before I have a Zoom meeting in 30 minutes. As I type, it’s Thursday, but honestly, my brain thinks it is Monday and no amount of looking at my calendar seems to shake the Mondays from my mind.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Mondays. They’re a nice little fresh start that I get every week, however, the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day is always this hot mess of Christmas chaos hangovers (not literal hangovers..not for me anyway), my body wondering why I haven’t eaten a vegetable in days, and balancing the desire to prep for “new year, new goals” and “let’s just wait until the 1st.” Does anyone else experience this weirdness or is it just me?

To strike the aforementioned balance, even though there are only 2 days left in the work week (including today), I am playing a bit of a game with myself. The game: what can I get a head start on for my desired 2024 goals?

I have at least 36 different goals that have come up for my desired 2024 goals. That’s a lot of goals. There are some I am sure won’t happen, some that I will decide were horrible ideas and I will abandon them, but there will be plenty that I will be looking forward to buckling down and achieving. In case you haven’t guessed what the first goal I am working on today is, it’s bringing back my blog. Hence my random blabbering right now. What doesn’t matter is finding the perfect topic for my first blog post since I don’t even know when. I don’t need some inspirational title or the perfect “new year, new you” subject matter in an attempt to get readers. I need to take messy action. I need to create the most beautifully imperfect post for the sole purpose of hitting “publish.” I just need to get started, so here we are.

Take a minute and think about the goals you have set for 2024. How can you get your beautifully messy start now? Not the 1st, but right now? Here are a few of the ways I’m starting today:

• Goal: Read 30 books. Start today: Read in the morning like I usually do.
• Goal: Revive my blog. Start today: Write this very blog post.
• Goal: Break up with my phone. Start today: Turn on Do Not Disturb and put my phone in a different room for at least 1 hour.
• Goal: Improve my health and fitness without dieting. Start today: 20 minutes on the elliptical, 100 oz of water, and eat solely based on my hunger and satisfaction cues (which could feel challenging coming off of all of the Christmas treats I’ve been eating the last week)

The tasks don’t have to be huge, perfect, or even new things. All I need to do is something, and that is enough to get the ball rolling. Remember, an object in motion stays in motion, and an object at rest stays at rest. My goal for the days leading up to Jan 1 is simply to be an object in motion.

That would be an excellent word of the year, by the way: Motion. Feel free to take it.

So, my friend, it’s time to become an object in motion and take advantage of the weirdest feeling week of the year. You can rest and lean into the weird time warp we are in for the week and take messy action. Let’s make 2024 the year where “or” doesn’t exist in our vocabulary (I can either take a step towards my goal or I can have a relaxed week) and instead replace it with “and.” Watch 2024 become your best year ever.