After a period of profound personal loss and extensive introspection, J.D., the founder of the personal finance community Get Rich Slowly, has announced a major shift in focus for the year ahead. In a candid update to his readers, he declared that 2023 will officially be designated as the "Year of Me," marking a deliberate pivot toward prioritizing his own mental and physical well-being after spending years putting his own needs on the back burner.
The announcement comes roughly two months after the death of J.D.’s mother, an event that plunged him into a heavy period of grief and stagnation. However, as the fog of mourning has finally begun to lift, he reports a renewed sense of motivation to reengage with productive pursuits. Rather than diving straight back into the relentless pace of digital publishing and constant content production, he has chosen to use this transitional moment to fundamentally reevaluate how he lives and works.
2023 — The Year of Me
For J.D., the concept of assigning a theme to a span of time is a familiar strategy. More than a decade ago, he regularly themed his years and months, finding both enjoyment and tangible success in dedicating focused blocks of time to specific goals, whether related to fitness, writing, or dating. Eventually, that habit fell away, and over subsequent years, he found himself consistently placing his own needs second, third, or even ninth behind other obligations and distractions.
Starting immediately, J.D. aims to reverse that trend by putting himself first for the foreseeable future. He acknowledges that this shift feels uncomfortable, noting that prioritizing one’s own health and desires can initially feel selfish or wrong. Yet, he recognizes that years of making excuses and allowing external demands to interfere with his physical and mental health are no longer sustainable.
Crucially, J.D. believes that this self-prioritization will ultimately make him a better person for those around him, including his partner, Kim, and his readership. While it is a piece of advice he has frequently offered to others, he admits to struggling to put it into practice in his own life until now.
For the regular readers of Get Rich Slowly, J.D. anticipates that the external changes will be minimal, though the internal shift for the author will be profound. By granting himself permission to place his own needs ahead of everything else, he expects to generate fresh perspectives and material for the site, alongside the long-awaited completion of the platform’s ongoing redesign.
However, as part of this new chapter, J.D. is intentionally stepping away from rigid publishing schedules and production demands. He intends to write and share content purely organically—when he has something meaningful to say—rather than forcing content simply to meet arbitrary deadlines. This reflective approach, he notes, mirrors how he spent his time recently: working through exercises from the book Designing Your Life before taking a moment to share an update with his audience.
The Courage to Be Disliked
The thematic groundwork for J.D.’s new outlook was further reinforced during a Thanksgiving road trip to California with Kim and her family. To pass the time during the drive, the couple listened to the audiobook The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, a work that explores the psychological worldview of Alfred Adler.
The book, which J.D. suggests might be more accurately titled The Courage to Be Happy, offered a wealth of philosophical insights that resonated deeply with him. Although some of the core statements and psychological concepts initially seemed perplexing without context, the experience prompted him to plan a deeper review of the material using the Kindle format to sift through the most impactful passages. He indicated that he may eventually publish a full review or summary of the book on Get Rich Slowly once he has fully digested its principles.
A Values-Driven Life
J.D.’s renewed commitment to himself is also anchored in a broader philosophical framework regarding personal agency and core values. Highlighting a passage from Stephen R. Covey’s influential book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, he reflected on the distinction between proactive and reactive individuals. Covey writes that the ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of a proactive person, whereas reactive individuals are driven by fleeting feelings, immediate circumstances, and their external environment.
Reflecting on this passage, J.D. realized that he had temporarily lost the ability to control his impulses while drifting away from his foundational values. In response, he has already begun taking concrete steps to curb distractions, such as deleting time-consuming applications like Reddit and Hearthstone from his iPad, in order to clear the mental space necessary to bring his values back into practice.
While these changes point toward a more conversational and fluid style of blogging for the time being, J.D. assures his audience that he is not abandoning long-form, focused articles altogether. For now, however, embracing a less structured, more reflective approach feels like the right path forward as he embarks on his Year of Me.
