2024 Recap: What Happened This Year?

As the year ends, I want to give myself some time to reflect and remember what happened this year.

I don’t really feel that I achieved a lot compared to previous years, but I want to trace my steps and give myself credit for surviving this year.

A lot of things happened and it feels like I lost track because of it, this year feels like “I just need to survive” – and I am thankful that I am still here kicking.

I want to start this on my Hive goals, this will also be my entry for the #hivehighlight2024 contest by @hiveio which you can find HERE if you wish to join the contest. I will compile all of the events that happened this year and don’t want to focus on Hive only.

My Hive Highlight Summary is already posted on Hive which you can read HERE.

My 3,000 HP Goals

At the start of the year, I decided to set a goal for staking up at least 3,000 HIVE before the year ends.

Surprisingly, I achieved it.

I never thought I could do it because, over the past few years of writing on Hive, I barely received any upvotes from other users, which left me feeling discouraged in writing and posting.

However, upon my stay, I realized that Hive isn’t only about the money but about the community.

I decided to become active in different communities primarily on InLeo and witnessed the platform’s growth.

Storytime…

I was active on the platform, and although I was not earning a lot from it, what I learned is to focus more on building connections and engagements; money will follow.

I focused on building my support system and made some friends – posting short-form content (threads) helps a lot.

Knowing that short-form content will only give you small exposure from your audience and it is not an evergreen content (at least for me), by doing it consistently, you can gain a lot of good outcomes that will pay off long-term.

I am still active in the community and not focusing that much on earnings, I enjoy my stay and just share a lot of threads when I want to document and share my journey.

Going back to my Hive journey…

Aside from sharing short-form content, I also decided to become more active in writing long-form content.

I was not really active in the past few years leaving me a small growth of success in saving more HIVE.

But mid-year was productive, I focused more on writing and becoming active on Hive.

Little by little, I earned a decent amount of HIVE and powered up some. I tried a lot of content just to “get there”, and until now, I don’t know how to get the most out of Hive when it comes to its financial side *(more on its writing and earning side).* But at least I am now getting some rewards from other users.

It is true that when you become more consistent, you can get the rewards that you are waiting…sooner!

In November, I managed to achieve my 3,000 HP goal and as of writing, I have about 3,100 HP which is a bit faster than my previous months.

I am also publishing more content during the Christmas break as I don’t have much school stuff (well I should have because of the thesis), and I am taking advantage of it to write more content before the new semester next year (more on this later).

Writing career

This year has put a lot of twists on my writing career.

Everyone knows that writing was not my passion, but I decided to pursue this career – and try to do it more in the coming years.

I have recently been fascinated by the idea of creating content through writing. Do you consider yourself a “content creator”?

I think you should if you are sharing informative posts with your readers. As I mentioned earlier, I am taking advantage of my free time and writing more. I find it rewarding over time.

I decided to go back to the old simple and minimalist design of my website.

I don’t want to make it complicated.

I also focused on writing more and pursued Medium and content marketing as my niche. I have about 100 topic ideas lined up for my upcoming posts which I hope I can finish.

I am now trying to revive my website and writing more while focusing on SEO. As of now, after writing more posts related to content marketing, I don’t really see the results from SEO, but I am still working on it. I focus more on producing more content and doing the marketing later.

I also maximize my content by repurposing it across the platforms where I publish it everywhere primarily on my website, Hive, and Medium.

This gives me more exposure, earnings, and traffic which is helpful for me as a writer to grow faster.

I can’t say that I am focusing on it 100% because of school, but I plan to take this path after graduation (hopefully I can pass my last semester, more on this later).

So far, I am seeing my progress in all of the 3 platforms that I am using and I have some initial plans to do; I am testing out more things to make this successful so I fully invest my time and effort into this.

School

My life of being a student nearly ends by next year – if I pass all the subjects (hopefully, please…I am tired of this life).

I know that I will miss the life of being a student but I am so tired of this cycle: review, stressed, but do not get any monetary rewards which matters in this era.

My 2024 of being a student was chaos…it just defines the “I just need to survive”.

Taking this degree is exhausting…there are times that I even cried because of it.

I remember failing a subject, and almost failing another subject, but had some ways to solve it. I had an INC grade on my portal, thankfully, I completed it and received a “mercy grade” of 3.0; engineering will make you cry indeed, but this grade is gold in this degree!

I am looking forward to passing all of my subjects by next year which will be my last semester, and finally, graduation!

I need to study harder because we will have a pre-board next semester and complete our thesis (a lot of expenses are coming up), and so, I want to do everything to finish this degree on time (pray for me!).

Finances

Hell yeah, I don’t really want to talk about this…but this adds up.

Nothing more happened to my finances this year…I feel completely lost this year when it comes to money.

I lost track of my money, had no income, and lost my passive income.

Maybe I should write a separate post about this, the summary is just I fucked up this year when it comes to money – a lot of expenses on school and not generating money means being broke.

Also read:

• My Financial Situation as a Student: Investment, Crypto-Earnings, and Business
• How To Manage Your Money As A Student
• How I Started My Side Hustle as a Student

I don’t know.

I feel that this year was not for me financially. Or maybe I am just undisciplined about handling my finances this year.

Overall, 2024 was a roller coaster. I had many mixed experiences, but I learned a lot to become what I am right now. I plan to improve next year, but my primary goal until mid-year is to graduate.

Then level up my writing career. I have high hopes in writing as I am now seeing my progress, and I hope I can continue.

So thankful that I survived this year – I hope I can have (and everyone) a good year in 2025.

Cheers!