2025 Goal Setting: 2024 Year in Review

Hello, dear friends. Happy New Year! Let’s take a look back at 2024 before we move ahead, shall we? One blog post can never accurately capture a year of one’s life, with all its pain and joy, but this process helps me see the way forward. Reflection reaps rewards.

My word for 2024 was new, which shined through at every turn. There were new projects we considered, new milestones with our health, new adventures taken, new vows said to each other, new wisdom gained from unexpected challenges, and new seeds planted — both literal and figurative. I also spent the entire year healing from a big surgery last November.

You can read all of my monthly goal updates here:
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October and November – a double post
December

Affliate links are used in this post. Enjoy!

2024 started the year with a trip to NYC with my friend, Shunta. After losing my best friend, Jessie, in December, I felt God’s tug to do all those things I’ve always wanted to do with my friends.

We saw my long-time CMU friend, Leslie, in Purlie Victorious on Broadway. It was incredible, to say the least. A dream come true to spend this time in the city with Shunta and see my dear friend do what he was made to do!

This trip kicked off a year of mostly unexpected travel. In the early part of the year, I went to Charleston for Soul Camp, a women’s retreat. I met some wonderful women and saw long-time friends.

The kids and I made memories in D.C. and enjoyed the Museum of the Bible’s production of Prince Caspian. It was stellar! We also enjoyed an unexpected hotel stay that wowed us, and I spent time with my friend, Maaden.

After reading My Side of the Mountain five or six times through with the kids (clearly a family favorite!), I dreamed of taking the kids to Lillington, NC, home of Hawk Manor Falconry. It was one of the coolest things we’ve ever done. Highly recommend. Chip was so knowledgeable and kind. The kids loved it!

Ari and I went to Miami, our first trip ever away from our kids on an airplane. We spent four days at the Carillon Wellness Resort and can’t wait to return. We learned the Argentine tango, biked many miles up and down Miami Beach, and enjoyed the expansive Carillon spa. My favorite was the crystal steam room! Most importantly, we had time together to dream and pray about the future and thank God for right now. This trip came on the heels of my finishing New Marriage, Same Couple, and we used the Vision questions from the book during our time together. It was wonderful!

Our family flew to Fort Lauderdale a couple weeks later for my niece’s bat mitzva and then I got an out-of-the blue (God) invitation to speak at Harvard’s Flourishing at Work Summit in Boston. This was humbling and fun to put a blazer on after a couple years away from the entrepreneurship world. I was so grateful Kaylee came with me!

Ari and Josh went to Father Son camp—a huge hit! They came back full of stories and camp songs.

We kicked off summer with the NC mountains and the beach, all in one week, with friends. We love you, Fishers!

Primland Resort in Virginia delighted Ari and me for a summer marriage retreat. We had an unfortunate first night with a carbon monoxide detector that wouldn’t stop beeping from a low battery, but our tiredness was eclipsed by the kindest staff and epic views. The best part of the trip, though, was our conversation. We went through the open-ended questions from The 7 Principles for Making Marriage Work.

Late summer brought our favorite family trip to Colorado to hike with my mom and brother. We did things I never thought I’d be able to do again. We did epic hikes with the whole family, and enjoyed the wildflowers, moose, and diving in an alpine lake!

I took friends on a life-changing wellness retreat a few weeks later, and started something new. This was a turning point in my life and the lives of my friends. It was healing and wildly fun. I LOVE these women.

The fall was full with a return trip to Primland (this time with the kids), Dallas for my part-time job, Nassau for our honeymoon trip that got stolen (!), Charleston for work, and finally, a third trip to Charleston with Ari for our birthdays. The last trip was Ari and my favorite. We talked, strolled, dreamed, enjoyed Ethos and worshipping Bright City, and simply enjoyed being together after a wild year, and a particularly challenging last part of the year with our mold remediation.

Our trip to Charleston also checked off a bucket list item for me: seeing the Angel Oak tree. I shared the story of this tree at every Making Things Happen Conference for a decade, and it was awe-inspiring to finally see it. We sat on a park bench facing the tree and had a significant conversation about the legacy of faith we want to grow for our children. It all started with a tiny acorn and faith can grow from a tiny seed plated with love.

Those were just the travelling days! 🙂 Back to life at home in 2024, by category:

Health and Wellness: This was the year I healed from a major surgery. This was my most significant effort this year, and took much prayer and intentionality. I may share more specifics one day, but I can tell you what was supposed to be a two-hour procedure and turned into four hours of extensive surgery, during which I had to be revived twice. It was traumatic and led to six weeks of bedrest, my mom moving in with us to help me for that time, and an infection that wiped my gut out with antibiotics. I spent the first half of the year focused on rebuilding my strength and my gut, starting from zero. I focused on healthy daily rhythms—doing small things each day that I new would add up over time. I consistently used my one-year PowerSheets and Season by Season Weekly Planner to help. Using a weekly planner was new for me, and I loved the format. It’s where I took church notes, made my to-do lists, noted goals from our marriage retreats, and kept my healthy daily habits in view. I’m using the same planners again this year (use code LARA for a discount). When I was back on my feet, I made a new weekly rhythm of going to the farmer’s market every Saturday morning with Josh and Grace while Sarah was at therapy and Ari was at the gym. Also this year, Ari began his IFM training and we started a broadcast channel to share our health journey. Ari joined Instagram. We baked. 🍫 (<- This recipe is the number 1 question I get lately. I’m glad to finally get this in your hands!)

Spiritual and Personal Growth: I’ve continued in our 3-year Bible reading plan and took many prayer walks with my friend Irma this year. I also welcomed waves of grief as this was the year I buried my best friend. Jessie’s funeral was small and just what she would have wanted: me, another friend, and Jessie’s family. We buried her on a beautiful green North Carolina hill. It’s still hard to believe she’s gone, but that thought always leads me to faith. I missed Dad a ton this year, too. The second anniversary of his homegoing was, as usual, devastating and needed all at once. I anticipate these grief milestones, and yet I can never predict the weight of how they will change me as they come. Another significant faith update, and a surprise to us this year, was returning to our home church. After many years in our house church, then moving to a larger congregation for a few months, we kept feeling something was missing. We missed our people, and have been grateful to be back home.

Home and Spaces: We sowed twelve varieties of tomato seeds, lots of herbs for cooking, four varieties of corn, giant sunflowers, and an entire bed of Erin’s zinnias. The garden was wonderful! As planned, I hired a wonderful professional organizer to help me clear out our home this year. I learned so much from Perri and achieved a 2024 goal to get rid of 20-30% of our belongings. In other home news, we shared our garage gym makeover and found black mold in our kitchen—this ushered in the Isaacson Wild Season of 2024.

Work and Learning: It was quite a year for work and learning! I moved my email list to Substack, and am praying about how best to use it this year. I wrote a little guidebook on How to Let Go of a Dream. I’m grateful it helped so many of you step into new seasons. I read good books: 365 Thank You’s, Good Inside (read this twice), Made for People, The Energy Bus, Fast Like a Girl, Let it Go, The Martha Manual, Be Thou My Vision, Good Energy, and several more. I fell in love with cooking, and sharpened my knife skills. Co-teaching a Shakespeare class at our kids’ homeschool school became a highlight of my fall. A huge blessing this year was doing business consulting for a few friends and helping them transition businesses—either to retire or sell. It was a JOY to use what I’ve learned to help these friends step into new seasons. After speaking at Harvard, I began a part-time role and signed up for something after 20+ years. I passed my exam on Christmas eve—I’m now a certified personal trainer (again!) with NASM. 🎉 I’m so grateful for this.

Marriage: This is perhaps the category of life that was most invested in this year, and with blessed returns. We deeply invested time and effort into our marriage. We made time for marriage counseling, took several marriage retreat trips, had Saturday day date, and after a surprise proposal from Ari, renewed our vows, and asked each other these six questions every week from Beating 50 Percent:

— What brought you joy this week?
— What was something that was hard this week?
— What’s one specific thing I can do for you this week?
— How can I pray for you this week?
— Is there anything that’s been left unspoken or unsaid? (Convictions, confessions, unresolved hurt?)
— What’s a dream, desire or thought that’s been on the forefront of your mind this week?

Finances: We transfer all of our investments to Kingdom-honoring redemptive funds thanks to our financial advisor’s guidance. We invested in a piece of regenerative land in Saxpahaw with friends. We opened savings accounts for the kids and began teaching Grace about financial health and investing. Most significantly, we paid for our funerals and decided where we will be buried. This was admittedly an eerie process to fill out the paperwork and make these decisions, but we know it’s the best gift we could give to our children so they don’t have to worry about it when we go Home.

Family: Sarah started her new school. After years and years of praying for the right education for her long-term growth and trying literally everything (public, homeschool, private, forest school – some of which were wonderful), God finally showed us his beautiful plan for her. It’s a small school for exceptional kiddos, and aside from the learning methods and support for her needs, they have chickens, a garden, morning hikes, and… two therapy cats! 🙂 She is the happiest camper, and so are we. After all these years of my nervous system being ramped up, trying to help her to feel safe each day, we’ve all taken a big deep breath. PDA and Autism can be complicated in a traditional school environment. Now, Sarah is in a place that celebrates her and builds her up as a leader. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord! Also of note with our family this year: our family photo albums finally are complete thanks to Chatbooks‘ Yearbook feature. It was so easy and I did it all from my phone. In the fall, we celebrated having a (wonderful, loving, creative, delightful) teenager, and had a truly blessed homeschool year with Josh and Grace.

Community and Friends: We spent meaningful time with friends each week after church and on trips—Sunday lunch at Whole Foods with the Fisher’s became a weekly tradition. There were cul-de-sac soccer matches, playdates, concerts, prayer walks, BBQ’s, and lots of neighborhood pool time. I was grateful to see many long-time friends this year on my travels, and loved our visit my friend Maghon’s shop. Ari and I closed the year with our 15th annual dinner with local Cultivate ladies. This yearly tradition is a gift. We have two annual questions we ask each other (gents included!), and we love hearing everyone’s answers:
– What good things happened this year?
– What are you looking forward to in the year ahead?
What a beautiful marker of time and the Lord’s faithfulness this has been over many years.

2024 was a year of healing, new adventures, and most of all, depended closeness with each other. There were significant challenges, and so many things not captured in this post. But, as always, I look back and raise my Ebenezer: thus far the Lord has helped me!

Happiest first week of 2025, friends. Up next… my 2025 goals.