I think I need to take a step back and acknowledge the successes I’ve had over the last year that maybe I haven’t really mentioned here too much.
Too often I only focus on the failures and things that need to be improved, while rarely pointing out all of the things that have gone well. That should change!
So here are some successes I’ve had over the past year or so:
- Drastically reduced or eliminated time spent on social media
- Drastically reduced time spent browsing the news
- Eliminated non-productive time on my phone
- Replaced it with productive activities
- Learned the name, location, capital, and flag of every country in the world
- Learned the name, capital, and location of every state/territory in Canada, the US, and Mexico
- Learned every US president in order, including the years they served, their party, and their presidency number
- Grew my English vocabulary by about 300 words
- Put on a significant amount of muscle and figured out a new workout routine that is yielding consistently positive results
- Got into the habit of running, and reduced my one-mile time from over 8:30 to nearly 6:30
- Have greatly improved the time in which I get up every morning, and minimized how late I sleep when not using an alarm
- Started drinking less
- Played drastically fewer video games
- Greatly improved Spanish skills with drills, continued practice, and watching Spanish-language television instead of English shows
- Learned a lot of history from reading and watching documentaries
- Finished renovating my house and rented out the bedrooms
- Paid off student loans, all credit card debt, and a business loan
- Purchased a company and successfully migrated all of the clients to my services
- Started investing money for the first time ever
- Improved my yard and lawn considerably and harvested my first black raspberries
- Caught the biggest snapping turtle I’ve ever caught
Honestly there are way more things than I thought there would be when I decided to make this list! That’s why it’s good to do it, to really get a sense of where you’re at and what’s going right.
I can’t help but feel like, while I did all of these things, there are many other things I should have been doing but didn’t. And while there is always room for improvement, it doesn’t all have to come at once. I think most of these fall into the category of self-improvement which I firmly believe will roll into improvement in all areas.
So I think I just need to keep it up, and good things will come!