Similar to what I did in 2018, I wanted to record what things, experiences, and ideas had the most positive impact on me in 2019 (and beyond).
👫 Family
I married my best friend and love of my life! People always ask, “has anything changed since you got married?” And my answer is: “Yes!” Things changed subtly. For example: we both started going to the gym more, eating healthier, and putting more emphasis on our health. We’re both pursuing our passions with even more vigor and alignment to our core selves. I describe some of these changes in more detail elsewhere in this post, but basically we both agree that getting married has encouraged us even more to strive to do all that we’re capable of doing, for each other and for our future together.
🕴 Career
In March, I got a new job at Lyft as a Data Scientist, which has definitely impacted my life positively. I have great co-workers, I love that I get to focus on product and user-oriented challenges, and I’m learning a ton about myself, how to work with others, and of course the art and science of learning from data. I joined right before the IPO, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the success of the company itself, and how well it’s run, plays a huge role your experience of working at that company.
What about my side projects? I launched ShiftReader this year! I’m excited to keep improving it. I’m also exploring a different side project, and want to keep it a secret for now, but let’s just say that I’m more excited about it than almost all other similar experiences in the past. It’s also a direct result of some of the “inner-strength” practices I describe below.
💪 Outer-Strength
I changed my workout routine and diet a bit this year, and as a result I’ve lost fat, gained muscle, and feel more energized on most days. What did I do?
Firstly, I introduced supersets into my workout routine. The idea of supersets is to move quickly from one exercise to another, without taking a break, thus making your workout more intense and shorter. I pair exercises for opposing muscle groups together, so that my muscles don’t get fatigued too quickly between sets. For example, I’ll do a set of bench presses (7 reps) which work my chest and triceps. Then, I immediately do rows (7 reps) which work my back and biceps.
I used to work each muscle group once every week. I’d have a push day for biceps and back, a pull day for chest, triceps, and shoulders, and a leg day. Now, with supersets, I work the “push” and “pull” muscles twice a week. Because with supersets I can work opposing muscle groups on the same day. I’ve experienced noticeable strength gains and physique changes after implementing supersets, while also shortening my workout a little.
I also implemented a form of intermittent fasting this year, technically called time restricted eating, which has metabolic health and longevity benefits. Basically, it means only eating during a certain range of time every day: for me, I only eat during the 8 hour timespan from noon to 8pm. I just skip breakfast in the morning and make sure to bring it to work so that I don’t decrease my caloric intake too much (my breakfast was Soylent anyways).
Lastly, I started doing light cardio when I can on my weightlifting “off days”. I only do around 15 minutes on the treadmill or stationary bicycle, making sure to keep my heart rate in zone 2 to burn fat while doing light enough exercise for recovery. Just getting my heart rate up and working up a sweat re-energizes me for the rest of the day.
🧠 Inner-Strength
I call this theme “inner-strength” because I’m referring to the power of your mind-conscious and subconscious-your spirit, and your energy. While I’m a big believer in having balance in life, I think that living a good life starts with inner-strength. Your thoughts manifest themselves as behaviors, which then change your reality.
Here are the experiences that have and continue to have an outsized impact on my inner-strength:
Meditation continues to benefit my life. I still try to do every day (in the morning). This year, a “newer” benefit of meditation emerged more prominently, and that is being able to recognize potential opportunities better. See point 4 here. I’ve used Sam Harris’s Waking Up app all year.
I also journal more regularly now. I set a goal to journal every morning, and I write in a balanced, structured and unstructured way. For part of my daily journal, I just write what’s on my mind, which is incredibly therapeutic. For the rest, I 1) brainstorm on the “Most Important Question” and 2) write down three things I’m grateful for.
I learned about the “Most Important Question” practice from an interview Josh Waitzkin did with Tim Ferriss ( show notes). For the “Most Important Question” practice, you ask yourself a question about where in life you feel stuck, preferably before bed. The next morning, you brainstorm around this question in a journal. By doing so, you train yourself to focus on the “most important questions” throughout your life. At every moment, there is always the One Thing that you can do such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary.
This “Most Important Question” practice also helps open the channel between your conscious and subconscious mind. Asking yourself the Most Important Question before you sleep puts your subconscious mind to work on that question.
The Habit app (iOS, maybe Android) has noticeably helped me stick to and develop habits that I’m less consistent at. For me, there’s something about seeing my progress over time as a line that goes up and to the right. I only have a few key habits on it though, including journaling and meditation. Developing too many habits at once overwhelms me and I fall off the bandwagon for all of them.
Scheduling my morning routine has helped me be more consistent with my (morning) habits. What doesn’t get scheduled, doesn’t get done.
Tim Ferriss always mentions that he re-reads The Magic of Thinking Big when he needs to feels doubt and fear creeping in. So I re-listened to it on Audible. Afterwards, I immediately felt more confident and optimistic. I noticed it in how I carried myself and interacted with people that day. I realized that I had been living in a “background haze” of doubt and negativity for a while. Listening to The Magic of Thinking Big again brought me out of it.
Lastly, I spent several days journaling and chatting with my wife and brother to discover myself more. I felt like I had lost sight of my true self a little, and that I needed to get closer to it again. I kid you not, I Googled “how to find yourself again” and followed some of the prompts that a WikiHow article suggested. Some particularly helpful ones included “Distinguish your thoughts from the thoughts of others”. Another one: “If I had all the resources in the world — if I didn’t need to make money — what would I be doing with my life and why?”. That got the juices flowing.
Those are the things that changed my life the most in 2019
What were yours? And what does becoming the best version of yourself look like in 2020?
Originally published at https://troyshu.com on December 23, 2019.
