Since 2016, I’ve been doing my Annual Goal Setting and Annual Appraisal. Since last year, I decided to put the Annual Review in the public. This yearly report is an attempt to reflect back on the last year, write an honest review of good and not-so-good aspects of the year. I also take time to set direction for the next year.
You can read my 2018 Annual Review here
There are 3 questions that I’m going to answer in my Annual Review:
2019 was a good year, with many positive aspects and some learnings. Let’s get on with this.
Health/Sports: This was a very good year in my Health and Sports pursuit. Major Achievements:
While I’m glad at the performance results, I’m happier looking at my overall consistency.
I continued to build on the foundation laid in last 3 years, and manged to remain consistent despite the crazy office work.
Travel: It was a good year for travel. Did 4 trips to Goa last year, then travel to Copenhagen, Bhutan and year end short break to Ranthambore. Copenhagen trip was highlight of the year. I absolutely loved Denmark - the cycling culture, peaceful vibes, all around a great city.
Office: Challenging year, with new responsibilities. Lot of late nights and stressful work. But I am still lucky to have a strong team, and overall smart people around me, which makes taking on the responsibility like tackling a challenge.
Connections: When I started getting active in Sports, I knew there would be Physical benefits. Soon I discovered benefits in terms of improvement in other traits - Discipline, Consistency, Mental Strength. You can’t take on something like Ironman along with job without improving on these factors. And these traits carry forward in other aspects of the life. But, I didn’t see another benefit of Sports - I met lot of awesome people. Many of those people now are my closest friends. We compete with each other, and yet cheer hardest for each other. I’m super grateful for all the connections I formed due to this sports.
Help in Triathlon Community: I’m not a coach. Infact, far from it. But few friends reached out to me to build their plan for different races, and I worked with them. It was a fairly intensive exercise - making weekly plans, regular discussion and followup. Good amount of time investment was needed. I learnt a lot in this, and was able to help some friends in the process.
Meditation: In 2019, I meditated for 150 days. I still do not count this as win. I want meditation to be as regular a habit as brushing teeth. So, the inconsistent nature of meditation counts as “no win” here. I will continue to work on this.
Writing: I wrote 21 Blog posts in 2019. Better than 2018, but far less than my target of 52 blog posts. Writing is important to me, as it helps me to share my thoughts and learnings with the community.
Reading: Sports and Office dominated my 2019. I didn’t give much time to reading as I would have liked.
Sports: At this point in life, Triathlon dominates a significant focus in my life. I’ve so far done 2 Full Ironman, and 3rd IM is planned this year. My goal is to improve as athlete and do a sub-12 Ironman. It is an aggressive target, but not beyond my reach.
Sleep: With many experiments on sleep, I’m finally getting better at this. My REM numbers have increased. This remains to be a priority. Good sleep helps not only the physical recovery but the mental clarity too. It is indeed a super power.
Meditation: The journey to build meditation as habit will continue in 2020.
Blog Writing: Atleast one post a week, 52 posts a year. Simple.
Continue to eliminate the non-essential: To say yes to all the stuff, I’ve to ruthlessly eliminate the inessential.. This year focus would be to reduce usage of smartphone. Immerse myself deeply in the work.
“The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their field of endeavor.”
My life experiment continues. I want to be mindful of the limited time we’ve on the earth. If something is worth doing, it is worth doing right. The journey of learning and un-learning continues. Cheers to a happy and progressive new year ahead.
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Footnotes: This review format is inspired by James Clear and Chelsa/Scott at Live Your Legend