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As the year draws to a close, I’d like to take a moment to share some reflections from the past twelve months: some wins, some losses, and some lessons.
First, I’d like to say that I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity to share my life and my ideas with you. It’s wonderful to know that so many other people are working on becoming better. I feel like we’re in this together. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy life to read and share my work.
I’m also very grateful for the support I get from my friends and family. As the pandemic waned, there were more opportunities to enjoy each other’s company, so in that regard, 2022 was much better than the previous two years.
Mind Care
As you know, taking care of my mind is my top priority each day. It’s why I exercise, meditate, and consume wisdom first thing each morning.
This year, I continued my streak of meditating for 20 minutes per day. Since I started this habit with three minutes a day in 2015, I’ve logged hundreds of hours of mindfulness practice and reaped tremendous benefits. I’m much more patient, I’m a better listener, and I’m far more skilled at emotional regulation. This practice, combined with Stoic philosophy, has made me much better at accepting reality and facing life’s difficulties head-on.
I highly recommend this as a daily reader:
I was pleased to discover last month that Brian Johnson has started making new content again. His service is called Heroic (formerly Optimize), and it takes wisdom from the self-development world and distills it into book summaries, classes, and bite-sized bits. For my daily wisdom, I’ve been watching the +1 series. They’re quick (usually under five minutes) and there’s a new one each day. Incredibly, all of their content is free, so click here to explore Heroic’s offerings and sign up for a free membership.
One thing that didn’t go well on the mind care front was allowing myself to get too busy. Last spring, I said “yes” to too many opportunities and found myself overburdened. I started to get burned out and had to make a course correction. In the second half of the year, I was better at setting boundaries.
Body Care
I tried two little experiments that have greatly reduced my IBS symptoms:
- I started a new fasting protocol: one meal a day, one day a week.
- I started taking digestive enzymes before meals that are off-diet, such as holiday feasts. (I discovered that taking them with most meals leads to constipation, so now I use them sparingly.)
I’ve had IBS for over ten years, and very few of the dozens of things I’ve tried were helpful, so these successes were a testament to the power of not giving up.
I also devoted a lot of energy this year to healing two lingering injuries: my right shoulder and my left knee. I went to physical therapy and diligently did the homework, and I saw great improvements in both.
I bought a pull-up bar and started building strength on that front. I also continued my push-up habit, and I’m now up to 18 per day.
However, it was largely a year of one step forward, two steps back for my body. I sprained my right foot on the 4th of July playing volleyball. Then I injured that same foot in a different way while hiking. Neither of those two injuries is fully healed. My pull-up strength training was interrupted by a month-long wrist injury. And I sprained my left knee on the second day of skiing this year.
Nonetheless, I’m proud of the efforts I’ve put in because I’m surely better off than I would have been without them. As I said in my book, life is a constant – and losing – battle against the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but that doesn’t mean you should quit fighting.
Business Growth
Both my tutoring and habit coaching businesses doubled their revenue from 2021. I attribute this to simply having been in the game longer. I’ve increasingly mastered my craft, more people know about my services, and I’m getting a lot of word-of-mouth referrals.
Learning
I’ve been leveling up in math by pushing into advanced calculus, which is great brain exercise.
I started a Duolingo habit to improve my Spanish.
My wife and I continued being bird nerds and learned even more about local species as we went hiking and kayaking here in the Pacific Northwest.
Writing
I wrote less this year than last year, and I found myself slipping out of my deep work routine more often than I would have liked. The good news is, I realized what was causing that, strategized around it, and recommitted to writing each morning.
My best article of the year, in terms of the feedback I got from readers, was the guest post I wrote for MindFull Education: 8 Keys to Thriving with Adult ADHD. If you or someone you know has ADHD, this is a must-read.
Reading
My love of reading has been fully rekindled, and I read a ton of great books this year. Here are my top recommendations:
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Excellent realistic sci-fi, hilarious storytelling, and lots of surprises.
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
A delightful and exciting fantasy novel.
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
Part mystery, part comedy, and part touching story of common humanity.
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing and A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor by Hank Green
This duology was the single best satire on the modern world I’ve ever seen or read.
The Broken Earth trilogy by N. K. Jemisin
A gripping fantasy trilogy that deals with trauma and prejudice in original ways.
The Three-Body Problem trilogy by Cixin Liu
Hard sci-fi, epic in scope, and mind-blowingly creative. I’m in awe of this author.
Friends and Family
The big event of the year was our wedding. Christina and I got married in August surrounded by family and friends.
We also cultivated several new friendships centered around playing tabletop games. We’ve learned that, as adults, if you want to make and maintain friendships you have to step up and invite people to do things. I’ve become very proactive about this, and it has made my life a lot more fun.
As an area of growth, I had to relearn the vital life lesson (by doing it wrong) that you should never assume you know what another person is thinking or assume you know what they want. But at least I had the humility to change course and apologize when it became clear I was wrong.
Lastly, Benny has continued to bless our home with his presence, his cuteness, and his crazy.
What About You?
How was your year?
What did you learn?
And what are you planning to do differently next year?
Here’s to another year of becoming better!
Best wishes,
Chris