As with every year, I do a personal review of my habits and I have to say 2022 has been yet another best year in terms of persevering on many positive habits while slacking on a few.
Reading - Perfect 365
I had a target of 15 books this year and I completed it a couple of days before. I was constantly 1 or 2 books behind schedule, however, I was able to accelerate during December. Here are the books I read by category.
The book I thoroughly enjoyed reading was “Mystic musings” by Sadhguru. I also liked $100M offers, a book that teaches how to sell more effectively.
The book I didn’t like or that did not satisfy my expectations were “Learn like a pro” and “You can win”. This would have been interesting perhaps had I read it when I was in my college may be, but I felt it was torture to flip the pages through.
"The Psychology of Money” would be the book I can recommend for everyone to read.
The longest book I read this year was “Mind Illuminated” by John Yates which was 500+ pages.
These are the stats for the past 7 years since I have begun tracking.
With serious momentum from the past years, I have had this habit running continuously for the past 1000+ days with a total check-in exceeding 2000 days!
As for 2023, I am going to set a higher target: 20 books. Wish me luck :)
Music Learning
I started this habit on 2021 September, however, I was able to make great progress this year with 270 check-ins! I could have gone more than this number, however, I couldn’t practice this when I am outside my home.
December month is when I had to take a break. However, I will be resuming it again in January.
I was able to learn a lot of key skills this year. I completed almost all the lessons on the Simply Piano app. I played many songs both in English and Tamil. The below one, Havana by Camila Cabello was my favorite. It took many weeks to practice and it was a really satisfying experience to do an amateur recording with 100% correct notes.
I also made well use of my Roland FP 30X Digital Piano which I bought towards the end of last year. It is very close to the Grand Piano minus all the maintenance and cost overheads. I bought one more music keyboard for my daughter this year.
Currently, I am practicing some complex Illayaraja songs. In fact, his songs were the reason, I took this habit up in the first place. Most likely I would be able to complete a handful in 2023.
Physical Activity and Sports
For the first half of the year, this habit was in full swing. I was consistently playing badminton. And started a new sport - Tennis! My favorite sport that I had wanted to play for a very long time. Fortunately for me, I found a great Academy just 5 minutes' drive from my home run by Mr. Vasu. I took 1:1 sessions and made great strides starting from zero. This was an ideal activity where I was fully physically active which I also thoroughly enjoyed.
Above is the sporting activity tracked for 2022. As can be seen, I was super active after taking up Tennis until I got stuck by a knee injury on June 2022 after which I was not able to play any sport whatsoever, an activity that I have been doing for a lot of years non-stop in some form or the other.
This is the statistic for the gym/yoga checking for 2022. Each green bar means I did at least 60 minutes of either Gym/Yoga or Rehab session.
Despite my injury, 2022 was my best in terms of physical fitness!!
Although my mind was full of energy, my body did not cope. In a week, I had been training for 90 minutes of Tennis, Personal training in the gym for another 90 minutes, and playing intense badminton. My body, in particular, my knee gave up. I burst my cartilage up, the same knee where I had surgery 10 years before recurred, only this time in the worst possible way.
I was pretty sad to have not been able to do anything for the next few weeks. I couldn’t go to the gym, or play my favorite games of Tennis and Badminton and I gained unnecessary weight and felt in the worst shape possible.
After meeting with different doctors for my knee, I found the right one in Dr. Vallaban of Paso physiotherapy. He was the only one to be able to identify and empathize with my problem and gave me hope that I could be able to play again although not immediately. I was fortunate enough to train myself at this center. It is still a long way to get back to full fitness, however, at least there is hope for me. Hopefully, 2023 puts me back in the driving seat. One thing I learned is, I should always respect my body and age and give it proper training before taking on any intense sport.
I need to thank all the trainers there who help me immensely in getting back to me in shape.
As for the fitness center, I had to thank Mr.Ananthu from the 24x7 gym for helping me be in shape for the first half of the year.
I also joined a new gym towards the end of 2022 and hired a new Personal Trainer, Mr. Iqbal. If at all I learned anything from the book Peak by Anders Ericsson, having a coach will be immensely helpful in whatever activity you do.
To sum up, I did not let the injury deter me from being physically active and I will ensure that the same intensity will continue in 2023 as well and hopefully get back to Tennis and Badminton courts!
Language Learning
2022 has been by far the best year as I took up 7 languages - Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Chinese, Italian, and Greek! I know it's a bit too much to take in, but once you get the knack for it, things become easy. Although I had to ditch Chinese and Greek due to their difficulty and focusing that time more on the other languages.
Spanish, German, and Portuguese get a perfect 365. I started three new languages exactly 128 days before and they have been going really well thus far. I use multiple sources and apps to study which include Duolingo, Memrise, and also storybooks.
I took 20 hours of 1:1 with a native Portuguese speaker Gabriella from Portugal. She helped me a lot with my spoken Portuguese. Hoping to clear the A2 exam next year in Portuguese.
Meditation
Not everything was rosy in 2022. One of the main habits that went to disastrous levels was my meditation habit. I used to meditate for 2 hours every day for years, however, I seemed to have slacked on it. I tried hard to get this habit back on track, but I procrastinated like hell. I am hoping to go for a 10-day Vipassana retreat this year and get this thing back to how it used to be. Mental strengthening is more important than physical strengthening, and hopefully, I want this to be back on track. If not 2 hours a day, 30 minimum should be possible.
This is unacceptable by my own standards.
Hoping to continue and strengthen my existing habits and form new ones if required.
“The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do.” - James Clear, author of Atomic Habits.
Wishing you all a fantastic 2023!
