This year was pretty chaotic. Lots of ups and downs in all aspects of life. I got overwhelmed and did probably the worst thing possible–I put everything on pause.
I’ve tried to make my goals for this coming year easy to measure. I’ve also set-up a couple self-care goals so that I can make sure I’m taking care of my health while at the same time, enabling myself to make forward progress.
Anyhow, this post is long and largely for my personal reflection. But feel free to hold me accountable in 2020 or share your goals for the coming year 🙂
Happy New Year!
2019 In Review
I had a lot of goals in 2019, but I stopped actively working towards most of them about halfway through the year.
I only read 48 books of my 100 book target. I was on track for the first half of the year, but then I read only a couple of books in the last half of the year. Here is what I finished reading:
- Fresh Off The Boat by Eddie Huang
- Secrets, Lies and Democracy by Noam Chomsky
- Confessions of a Sociopath by M.E. Thomas
- I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
- How To Fight A Hydra by Josh Kaufman
- Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
- The Thoughtful Leader by Mindy Gibbins-Klein
- Developing the Leader Within You 2.0 by John Maxwell
- Time Management for System Administrators by Thomas Limoncelli
- Awareness by Anthony de Mello
- Unspeakable by Chris Hedges
- Heart and Brain by Nick Seluk
- Heart and Brain: Gut Instincts by Nick Seluk
- The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Zander and Benjamin Zander
- I Think I Am In Friend-Love With You by Yumi Sakugawa
- Battle Angel Alita (Vol. 1) by Yukito Kishiro
- Battle Angel Alita (Vol. 2) by Yukito Kishiro
- Battle Angel Alita (Vol. 3) by Yukito Kishiro
- Battle Angel Alita (Vol. 4) by Yukito Kishiro
- Battle Angel Alita (Vol. 5) by Yukito Kishiro
- Battle Angel Alita (Vol. 6) by Yukito Kishiro
- Battle Angel Alita (Vol. 7) by Yukito Kishiro
- Battle Angel Alita (Vol. 8) by Yukito Kishiro
- Battle Angel Alita (Vol. 9) by Yukito Kishiro
- Burnout by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski
- Organizing Her Life by Lauren Souders
- Bird Box by Josh Malerman
- Do No Harm by Henry Marsh
- Anatomy for Runners by Jay Dicharry
- Everything Is F*cked by Mark Manson
- Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker
- The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan Holiday
- The Start-Up of You by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha
- Love That Lasts by Jefferson Bethke and Alyssa Bethke
- The Power of Everyday Missionaries by Clayton Christensen
- Becoming by Michelle Obama
- The Diabetes Code by Jason Fung
- Can’t Hunt Me by David Goggins
- Voices From Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich
- White Rage by Carol Anderson
- How to Think Like a Roman Emperor by Donald Robertson
- Models by Mark Manson
- Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday
- The Outsider by Albert Camus
- Atomic Habits by James Clear
- Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby by Sandi Metz
- The Self-Driven Child by William Stixrud and Ned Johnson
- It Starts With Food by Dallas Hartwig and Melissa Hartwig
I wanted to bring my Pocket backlog down to below 50 articles. I was successful here–I brought it down from 1164 articles at the beginning of the year to 29 articles at the time of writing.
I also wanted to bring my Overcast backlog down to below 5 podcast episodes. I was successful here–I brought it down from 47 episodes (though, I appear to have peaked at 66 podcasts in the Spring) to 2 episodes.
I didn’t do any personal coding projects this year, though I had originally intended to complete 4 of them to learn new things.
I can’t remember exactly what I was aiming for with regards to meal prep–probably something like 90-95% of my meals being meal prep. By the end of the year, only 21.9% of my meals came from meal prep.
I aimed to reduce my restaurant spending by 80% this year, but I don’t think I reduced that number by much compared to the previous year.
My savings goal got derailed as I switched my financial priorities in October.
With regards to body measurements, the only numbers that saw significant movement was my waist (dropped 3 inches at one point during the year), my stomach (dropped 3 inches at one point during the year), my arms (gained 1 inch at one point during the year), and my weight (varied between 179 and 208 pounds throughout the year–smaller weight loss than previous years).
Although I was aiming to go running multiple times each week, I averaged about one run every two weeks this year. I recorded 5 runs in my best week this year.
I was aiming to increase the amount of volleyball I played this year, but that did not happen. This year I played the same amount as the previous year.
I wasn’t able to increase my mindfulness/sensitivity to my Apple Watch notifications. For this goal, I think I need a better action plan on how to improve in this area.
I felt like I increased the frequency that I was in communication about my experiences this year, but I haven’t determined a great way to quantify this yet.
With regards to minimalism, I did manage to donate, give away, or throw away a bunch of books, clothing, kitchenware, and electronics this year, but only about 10% of what I was originally hoping to do so.
2020 Goals
Gonna try something different this year to see if it affects how much reading I get done. I’m going to choose specific books in advance as part of my reading goal. If I want to read something else instead, I’ll just have that book replace something else on the list.
In 2020, I will read these 100 books:
- Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
- Azumanga Daioh by Kiyohiko Azuma
- Crisis in the Red Zone by Richard Preston
- East of Eden by John Steinbeck
- The Empty Pot by Demi
- Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot
- The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
- Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson
- The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
- The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov by Vladimir Nabokov
- A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
- Boyd by Robert Coram
- The Boys in the Boat by Daniel Brown
- Endurance by Alfred Lansing
- The Five by Hallie Rubenhold
- The Hero’s Journey by Joseph Campbell
- Maybe You Should Talk To Someone by Lori Gottlieb
- The Perfect Predator by Steffanie Strathdee and Thomas Patterson
- Permanent Record by Edward Snowden
- This Is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay
- Tiger Woods by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian
- Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino
- The Absent Superpower by Peter Zeihan
- The Accidental Superpower by Peter Zeihan
- The Big Short by Michael Lewis
- Blowout by Rachel Maddow
- Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
- Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow
- Fascism by Madeleine Albright
- Grace Will Lead Us Home by Jennifer Hawes
- Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari
- How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram Kendi
- Letters of Note by Shaun Usher
- The Only Plane in the Sky by Garrett Graff
- Persecution and Toleration by Noel Johnson and Mark Koyama
- Say Nothing by Patrick Keefe
- She Said by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey
- Slavery by Another Name by Douglas Blackmon
- Thick by Tressie Cottom
- Yellow Crocus by Laila Ibrahim
- The Algorithm Design Manual by Steven Skiena
- The C Programming Language by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie
- Clean Code by Robert Martin
- Cracking the Coding Interview by Gayle McDowell
- The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle
- Demystifying Public Speaking by Lara Hogan
- The DevOps Handbook by Gene Kim, Jez Humble, Patrick Debois, and John Willis
- The Effective Manager by Mark Horstman
- It’s Your Ship by Michael Abrashoff
- The Manager’s Path by Camille Fournier
- The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford
- The Pragmatic Programmer by David Thomas and Andrew Hunt
- Radical Candor by Kim Scott
- Reinventing Organizations by Frederic Laloux
- Resilient Management by Lara Hogan
- The Unicorn Project by Gene Kim
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
- As a Man Thinketh by James Allen
- Becoming a Person of Influence by John Maxwell
- Changing on the Job by Jennifer Berger
- The Dichotomy of Leadership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
- The Essays of Warren Buffet by Lawrence Cunningham and Warren Buffett
- Failing Forward by John Maxwell
- Getting Things Done by David Allen
- The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann
- Goals! by Brian Tracy
- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
- Leading from the Emerging Future by Otto Scharmer and Katrin Kaeufer
- Mastery by Robert Greene
- Maximum Achievement by Brian Tracy
- Millionaire Teacher by Andrew Hallam
- The Most Important Thing by Howard Marks
- Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg
- On Writing by Stephen King
- Seeking Wisdom by Peter Bevelin
- The Slight Edge by Jeff Olsen
- Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe
- The State of Affairs by Esther Perel
- Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude by Napoleon Hill and W. Stone
- Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
- The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday
- In The Buddha’s Words by Bhikkhu Bodhi
- Joyful Wisdom by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche and Eric Swanson
- Letters from a Stoic by Seneca
- The Places That Scare You by Pema Chodron
- The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
- Start Where You Are by Pema Chodron
- The Way to Love by Anthony de Mello
- To Be Human by Jiddu Krishnamurti
- When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy by Christine Wilding
- Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry
- How to Have a Good Day by Caroline Webb
- The Body by Bill Bryson
- Cosmos by Carl Sagan
- Factfulness by Hans Rosling
- Invisible Women by Caroline Perez
- A Sting in the Tale by Dave Goulson
In 2020, I will check-in with my stress levels weekly via a journal entry; each week, I will create a self-care plan based on stress levels and then execute on that plan. Because I’m not very in touch with my stress levels, I intend to do this by looking out for proxy indicators that I’ve identified in the past including feeling the need to be efficient/perfect, picking my skin/nails, withdrawing from sports or social activities, decrease in sleep quantity/quality, and digestion issues.
In 2020, I will decrease my fasting blood glucose levels to the lower-half of normal levels.
In 2020, I will decrease my body fat percentage to 10%.
In 2020, I will run 2000 km. (This is ~40km a week.)
In 2020, I will consume meal prep for 990 of my meals. (This is ~90% of my meals, assuming 3 meals per day.)
In 2020, I will complete 366 pre-determined gym workout routines.
In 2020, I will be able to complete an ass-to-the-ground body weight squat while keeping my heels on the ground.
In 2020, I will be able to bend over and touch my palms on the ground while keeping my legs straight.
In 2020, I will meditate 366 times for at least 5 minutes each session.
In 2020, I will track my mood in Gyroscope 1460 times and increase my average mood score to 75%. (1460 times works out to be about 4 entries per day; my average mood score from this year was 46.2% — 54.9% happy and 23.5% energy.)
In 2020, I will increase my average time asleep per night to 7 hours. (I hope to eventually increase this to 8 hours; this year, I slept for an average of less than 5.7 hours per night.)
In 2020, I will find a new therapist with whom I will work towards a meaningful depression-/anxiety-related goal.
In 2020, I will publish 120 blog posts.
In 2020, I will renew my L and then obtain my N.
In 2020, I will journal twice a week about things that frustrate or worry me; I will initiate responsible conversation with anyone who appears more than once, and I will visualize a better future/relationship with that person/in that area.
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