I spent a lot of the past year playing personal catch-up. Like many, I didn’t adapt well to 2020. I let circumstances out of my control get the better of me. I allowed events to beat me down and, to borrow from Bukowski, club me into dank submission.

It wasn’t until late spring of last year that I could muster the energy and motivation to pick myself up again. And since then I’ve been in a constant state of growth and change.

So while the year is still fresh in my memory I’d like to share a few of the new habits, personal tweaks, and odd projects that stood out for me last year.

Waking up

Not to be confused with the Sam Harris meditation app, waking up earlier has had a significant impact on my life. I’ve never been a morning person. And if I’m being honest, I’m still not. That said, forcing myself to get up early — like 3:30 early — has shown me how sharp my mind can be before the distractions of the day swoop in.

I’ll often get in two or three hours of writing or design work done before I leave for my regular job.

A Morning Routine

This directly ties into getting up early. My morning routine is what primes my entire day. It gets my mind focused and my body energized for the rest of the day. The days where I miss the routine (Mondays, amiright?) I find myself lethargic and easily distracted. I become dependent on caffeine.

Avoiding Socials

This has been massive in improving my overall mood. And it should be no surprise. People have preached this for years. I don’t avoid social media altogether but I do significantly limit myself. I never check it in the morning and limit myself to quick peeks throughout the day. And rarely do I check within an hour of going to bed.

Anxiety has fallen away significantly.

Learning

I’m a curious person; I love learning new things. And with everything happening in tech these days, there’s no shortage of things to learn.

With everything blowing up in cryptocurrency, I decided I wanted a better understanding of how it all works. I took a deep dive into blockchain technology and how the whole ecosystem functions. Somewhere along the way, I realized I lacked a technical understanding of the programming side of things. So me being me, I started a programming course in Python.

While I don’t yet have any practical use for what I’ve learned, the experience of learning and exercising the brain was rewarding enough.

Web Design

Putting some focus back into website projects has kept me in focus over the last year. Rebuilding the main travel website and starting a second destination-focused site, were projects that reminded me how much I enjoy the process. So much so that I decided to start my own side business doing web design and SEO.

Between outside jobs and work on my own sites, this world has occupied most of my free time in the best kind of way.

Meditation

This time I am referring to the Sam Harris app.

It’s almost cliche at this point, someone telling you that meditation has helped improve their life. But I’ve noticed a significant increase in an overall mood since integrating a regular meditation practice into my life.

I’ve been meditating on and off for over a decade, including stints in a Buddhist monastery in Thailand and a Hindu ashram in India. Yet I’ve never been able to keep a steady practice here in the ‘real world’.

It wasn’t until this past year and the discovery of a simple app that I’ve finally found a way to commit to a steady and rewarding practice.

If you’re curious about giving it a go, I can’t recommend the ‘Waking Up’ app enough.

Looking Forward

Baby steps. It doesn’t take a lot to make big changes.

I’m hoping that 2022 can bring just as many improvements.

What steps have you implemented over the past year, and what are you planning to do throughout the coming year?