So, Another year has been passed, total of 365 days.
It’s time again to reflect how 2018 was and whats’up for 2019 ?

2018 was completely different experience for me. Experience of something, I never thought of. It’s fun, crazy, hard and must-happen phase of the life.
It was different due to some of the events that happened, something bigger, that opens up different perspective to view everything.
Before starting with conventional things I have completed or lacked in, it’s again warning to every reader to not to read this boring essay or still, if you have extra 10 mins of your life, read it twice 😀

I would first like to start with the few things I planned but not able to complete:

1. No allopathy medication:
   When I was feeling little high in temperature or catching cold, I used to get allopathy medicine as a quick fix. But, that was anyhow making my immune system weak. So, I tried to avoid taking the medicine and using natural cures even it takes time.
   But, due to some circumstances I took medicine around 3-4 times in complete year. I still remember, 2 times I had a choice, either to not take medicine and have rest or to take it and go for a run. And obviously, I chosen later :p
2. Fasting for 24 hours
   Firstly, I am not religious but want to fast to experience how fasting for 24 hours feel like. It can be just for curiosity or whatsoever, but I didn’t even tried for that. I wish if I can do this in 2019 even once.
3. No phone day:
   Similar like fasting, I want to live without my phone for complete 24 hrs to understand and see how addicted I am to phone. I tried this by getting away for 10 hrs, then 11 hrs, and so.
   But, then something happened with my life that getting away for even 1 hr was dangerous (pun).
   Jokes apart, I’ll try this as well for 2019

What have I accompolished ?

Running:
Past year, I have not run many races but the ones I ran, I really improved my timings with gap.
To begin with, I became the marathon runer in 2018 (YoYo) by completing my first Full Marathon (42.2kms) in New Delhi marathon. This was something I am really proud of.
It’s not something you wake up and go for 42kms run. There were lots of sacrifices that made me achieve this.
After this, I was selected as a pacer for Half-marathon. When you learn so much from community, sometimes, you need to pay back, that I really enjoyed by pacing 2:00 bus in Punjab half-marathon and helping my running buddies achieve their target of running 21k under 2 hrs.
In total I have finished 1 Marathon, 4 half-marathons, 1 10k run and 1 5k run, completed 100DaysOfRunningChallenge and IAmRunning333Days challenge where I ran continuously for 333 days and after that, I haven’t taken any break so far.
More on running, I will explore my journey in my next blog post ‘Ruuning Anniversary’ next month.
Apart from running, I have also done some adventure sports like Ziplines & Rip liner at Sanawar camp.

Books:
Following are the books I read past year:
Project Management for dummies (Helping me in my current assignment)
The richest man in babylon (Finance)
The leader who had no title (Leadership)
Hard things about hard things (Leadership)
WHO – Hiring A Player
The Checklist
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus (recomenneded read to know how men & women thinks differently)
The Parable of Pipeline (Finance)

Events:
This year I didn’t attended many events, as I observed that self-learning through books and online channels are the basics. Until you goes through them, master it, you will not get much content in events.
Knowldege can’t be accumulated in a day but series of small small events. Although, I have attended TieCon Chandigarh, Business Agility Workshop, and some lean coffee meet-ups that was really interesting.
Thanks ucreate.it for hosting such meet-ups.
Aah, and uncountable running events 😀
How can I miss this, wonderful Poertry event by The Social House.

Travel:
2018 was year when I explored the tri-city alot that too in narrow range of time (Special reasons :p ).
Anyhow, I travelled some near by areas like Sanawar Camp in Sanawar (Office trip), Kasauli (Office trip), Anandpur Sahib (Thanks to running for new area to explore) that too on ocassion of Vaisakhi, many trips to Delhi (As ussual credit goes to running).
Not much travelling in 2018, but it was fun whatever I had.

Others:
What else I have done in 2018 apart from these:

1. Started crypto mining (Aah, not doing anymore..)
2. Got a chance to see live kabaddi match on BIB expo day of Anandpur Sahib Half-Marathon.
3. Switched my career to management profile which I was planning from a long. It’s good that I am now enjoying my work much more and learning a lot.

What’s special ??
Not much.
Every year has many ups & downs, many good & bad moments, many crazy times, lots of memories and something new to learn.
But, what if we have to take only 1 thing that is unique in that year.
Although, we do many things for the first time but is that really you thought of, or makes that moment/event unique.
To extract, there was 1 thing that came to be very very different in 2018 and yes, that was not expectable.
‘Break-up’
Yes, I read, learned, ran and done lots of stuff in 365 days, but what makes this year apart from all time I spent living in this world is my relationship break-up.
Aah, why I am writing here about this ??
Actually, I am not writing the experience how or why it happened, what’s after that, how it started or so.. but to mention, it is the event that happened past year and an unforgottable event. I want myself to remind me of this event even after the years I read my this blog post.
Although, this topic already had been covered in my writings (obviously, that will not be going to publish here 🙂 ).
But, why this was so special ? It’s because:

1. It’s no one can expect.
2. It’s not something that anybody wants to.
3. It’s not that happen everytime or with everyone.
4. It’s big event, you can only experience if you have gone through.

Break-up has 2 effects: It breaks you or you break the records. You have a choice.
And I chose to go with later. I appreciate the time we had together, we learned many things from each other and I wish good time for your future my friend.

You can’t change that happened, but you can always learn from it and move higher.

Things I learned in 2018:

Any lesson you learn, applies to every area of your life – whether be it physically, mentally or financially.
You can see talking about this alot in this article futher going.

Protect yourself from downside first – physical, mental, emotional, financial.
I learned this concept in context of finances, but it applies to many areas of life.
Starting from Finances itself, I am particular risk taker when it comes to dealing with finances. Risk taker but not gambler.
Previously, I was not like same. I have traded stock options & crypto without much knowledge and seen few losses.
In the process, I learned a lot and best thing I learned is no profit is better than losses. It’s better to first protect yourself from losses, it doesn’t mean to go traditional path and not take any risk, but play smart.
Similar point I experienced in physical aspect of life as well. Like I am fond of running, here I learned that quality running is always better than quantity running.
I was obsessed with logging more miles and so even ran 10+ kms everyday for continuously 100 days. Obviously, it helped me but everyday was not just same.
Some days, I were running only after taking medicine. But true results yields after I started quality running that includes strength training, speed work (yes, less mileage) and rest days (3kms slow run is similar to rest day).
When reducing your HM timings for 2-3 mins is difficult, with smart training, diet & perseverance, I reduced my PB for HM by 12+ minutes. this happened because I took proper rest (protecting from downside) when tired, more sleep and obviously, good diet.
Now, coming to how protecting yourself from downside mentally can help. For an example, it is better to take time before getting into any relationship than to rush so that things would not fall apart.
Taking time before doesn’t guarantee that everything will work out in future but is how you can protect your mental well-being going downside. Although, my relationship was well being before 😀 , but it is important point always to consider. It is something you can relate to mental toughness.

Do things consistently even small, instead of 1 big event
This is another area which I learnt past year and can also relate to different areas of life.
Financially: Taking example of stocks, instead of putting all your money in some stock/fund in one go, prefer going through the route of SIP. It will make your buy averaging better, protect you falling in one go in case of crashes and you always have some liquid cash in your hand.
Physcially: If you run for straight 10 hrs 1 day, and not run for rest of the month, it will not going to yield any result rather may cause you injury, but if you run for just 20-30 minutes everyday for a month, you will get fitter without risk of injury (If you have correct form, e.g.)
Simillarly, doing Gym for 20 mins everyday for month will show results instead of doing gym once a week for 3 hrs.
Mentally, Again connecting it with relationships, it will always be better to do small small things consistently instead for arranging 1 big event as this is life, things should not stop.
Practically, I want to switch my profile in my career. And instead getting some crash course from somewhere, I kept learning the basics everyday 1 at a time and started practicing in my current work. It yields results and I am now working as per my area of interest.

Continue to learn and do, sometimes results come at last and in very short period of time.
Taking example of my professional career.
Whatever I learned in initial 6 years of my career, I learned more in next 8 months in my new job.
Whatever I learned in that 8 months, I learned more in next 2 months in my new job.

Life will get you through many phases, you learn many things, if you are willing to and I can say: Whatever I have learned in past 25 years, comparitively I learned alot more in last 6 months.

It doesn’t mean that back of the time, you wasted, but that is the time you created a base for these learnings.
As it is said “You earn your medals in training. you just pick them up on race day.“

What’s planned for 2019 ?
Mindfulness:
I used to give fitness a priority. But, was only to physical fitness. Now, I am physically fit and continuously working on to improve that.
In 2018, I improved a lot physicaly by going extra miles and results shown are incredible. Running becomes a part of my lifestyle now, not a daily chore. Yes, I am running from more than 365 days now (no leave, anyday).
But, what about mental fitness ?
We are used to told about being physically fit but very few tell us about being mentally fit.
To achieve bigger things in life, we need clear focus of mind instead of distractions of our own thoughts.
2019, I want to exercise my mind. Mindfulness is the biggest thing you can imagine and this year I am slowly practicing meditation to improve in this area.
It’s little tough at start, but once you get to know the core, you will improve over the time. But, first you should be knowing it’s importance.
Initially, when I started meditating, I found even sitting idle for 5 mins terrible. But, with delibrate practice and preservance, it is found to be most enjoyable moment of my day.
Doing meditation is now my top most priority in 2019 and I am trying to improve in this little by little everyday.

Running:
Whereever I go, in whatever situation I am, running can’t live without me. Yes, it is the strongest bond we have for each other.
This year, I have some different plan for progresing in running. Last year, where focus was on logging more miles, this year will focus on quality trainng instead of doing more.
Yes, quality running means maintaining a balance between long runs, speed work, rest time, tapering, strength training, cross-training, etc.
I don’t know how far I will go, but I have set few numbers for myself to beat.
Longest distance: Maximum distance I have covered is 42.73km and now planning to move into ultra running. If I will be able to finish 1 ultra-run this year without getting injured, I would consider this as accompolished task.
Marathon timings (42.2km): Reducing time from 4:42:24 to 4:21:59 hrs
Half-Marathon timings (21.1km): Reducing time from 1:41:45 to 1:37:00 hrs (Want to enter into sub-100 club first)
10k timings: Reducing time from 46:30 t0 44:00 mins
5k timings: Reducing time from 21:13 to 20 mins

Journaling:
Take out what’s in your head and your mind will become clearer.
I started practicing daily journaling and found it one of the most grateful way I treat myself.
Journaling is raw form of your emotions, learnings, observations you throw into the paper. There is no manipulation of thoughts and when we let things go from our head to paper, we feel better.
We become more self-aware. We learn ourselves deeply. We actually connect with ourself, talk with ourself and can easily identify the patterns in our life.
No doubt, it gives us clarity in ilfe and hold on our emotions.
1 more thing, when we read our journal say after 1 year, we can relate how far we have moved from that time. How things are now changed. How much we have improved and lot more which gives lots of confidence in self.

Core focus in 2019:
Self awareness & improvement:
More you are self-aware, more you can do.
Meditation & Journaling are helping in becoming more aware about myself.
I recognised how strong and powerful I am, how grateful I am and how much I am good at lot of things.
Also, I am getting where I am lacking at, and improving in every area little by little.

When it comes to self-improvement, I consider all following areas:
Physically
Mentally
Financially
Emotionally
Spiritually
Profesionally

Not in specific order, but I am focusing to become more aware about my current situation in every area and getting 1 step closer to improve.
1% improvement everyday will lead you to something extra ordinary.

Let’s see what shape this year will take on..

Happy 2019!!