My Sober Year in 2020

Six Daily Habits Developed, and one of the Most Productive Years of my Life

Last year was one for the books, literally and figuratively.

I was fortunate enough to have the most productive year of my life and to have come out of it actually feeling better than I ever have. And no, it’s not because I secretly longed to be locked in my house for the entire year (although, I must admit I’m rather enjoying the work from home life).

How did I do this? Below, I’ll share six habits that I created this last year, how consistent I was with them, and some learnings along the way.

Short version

EVERY DAY I HAD THE FOLLOWING 6 GOALS: Don’t drink alcohol. Exercise 30 minutes. Meditate 10 minutes. Learn something new or study something for 30 minutes. Read for 30 minutes. And lastly, weigh myself. The first habit (not drinking) opened up the time and space for all others. Exercise and meditation led to strong feelings of wellness daily. Weighing myself quantified both how exercise was helping me and how my diet was contributing (positively or negatively). Daily reading and learning allowed me to keep my mind sharp and grow more than any year in recent history.

Detailed version

No Alcohol/ Sobriety (100% of Days)

I decided to do a sober/dry year for 2020, and this was the one goal/habit I had 100% adherence to all year. I can (and likely will) write an entire post about what I took away from a year with no alcohol. A few of the highlights are below:

Alcohol takes a lot of time and energy – Those glorious days I used to spend at wineries or pubs watching sports with friends took a huge amount of the time I could have spent bettering myself, or at least doing something remotely productive (see all the other habits below). Alcohol makes you feel worse – Although I got a short-term boost to my general feelings of happiness from drinking, that soon gives way to increased levels of anxiety (or hangxiety) and makes it so that I didn’t feel much of anything, either the highs or lows. Ever feel like you’re crawling out of your skin the day after a night out drinking? If so, you know what I mean. Alcohol is not good for the waistline – I lost 35 pounds in 6 months after I stopped drinking. Yes, a lot of that was exercise as well. But, I wouldn’t have gotten there with alcohol in the picture. Are you considering taking some time away from drinking and have questions? Feel free to reach out.

Exercise (85% of Days)

Having the time and energy back from not drinking allowed me to focus on a strong daily exercise regimen. I set out to exercise for 30 minutes every day. This one was particularly hard some days, especially when I was stressed or stretched for time. But what most people who exercise know, no matter where you’re at in your day, you almost NEVER finish a workout regretting that you’ve done it. Sometimes my exercise would just be a good walk around the neighborhood and some stretching. Other days it was a 20 mile run. I just listened to my body and fed it what I thought it needed. And that’s okay. It’s a marathon, not a sprint (pun intended).

If you’re interested in starting an exercise routine but don’t feel like you have time, my recommendation is to commit to an amount of time that you can make work each day. If you can only do ten minutes in the morning stretching and walking around your neighborhood… Cool, do it! It gets easier, and soon enough, you fall in love with it.

Meditation (88% of Days)

Meditation, the cornerstone of most mindfulness practices. This is a habit I’m particularly happy to have cultivated, because I struggled to create one for years. One reality I have to deal with on a daily basis is that I deal with a fair amount of anxiety, particularly social anxiety. It’s not crippling, but it’s there. Meditation has been the single most effective tool I’ve equipped myself with to manage my energy, mood, and the flood of mind chatter I and the rest of us deal with on a daily basis. Being able to create just a little bit of space between the ~6,000 thousand thoughts I have every day (don’t judge, check THIS out) has been such a welcome reprieve.

One big thing I learned having developed a mindfulness practice is that IT’S OKAY TO NOT FEEL LIKE YOU’RE DOING IT WELL OR RIGHT! Some days I sit there, overwhelmed with thoughts, and I’m only able to be really present with my breath or the guided meditation for a couple minutes combined. I learned not to sweat it or beat myself up over it. It’s a practice… and the practice is not a means to an end, but an end in and of itself.

Weight (85% of Days)

I was able to lose 35 pounds by mid-2020, and am currently close to 20 pounds down from my starting point now in March 2021 . My level of intention around weight management fluctuated over the course of the year, but what I can say is that I felt much healthier for most of the year than most of the last ten years of my life. Each pound or two I lost, I found exercising easier, which made exercising more enjoyable… The one pound and one mile runs soon became 15 pounds and fifteen mile runs, and the trend just continued.

The biggest takeaway that I had from watching and managing my weight over the course of the year is that, when all else fails, go running. My diet isn’t great. Somehow running still melted the weight off. Can’t run? Find the next exercise you hate the most. It’s probably also great for weight loss. Burpees will do the trick just fine if you can’t think of one.

Reading (80% of Days)

I set out to spend 30 minutes every day reading, which led me to have the most productive reading year that I’ve had in my life. Many of the books I read were career (data analysis) or personal-development focused including titles like: The Signal and the Noise, Code, The McKinsey Edge, Atomic Habits, The Alchemist, and many others. One interesting note is that I read Atomic Habits later in 2020 after I had already been intensely focused on developing my six daily habits all year, and the book felt as if it were more of a review of what I had already learned from doing the work. It was pretty cool to feel as if I had arrived at many of the same conclusions on my own.

One thing reinforced for me this year is how powerful reading can be to help learn just about anything quickly. We often forget that writers are distilling their best ideas into those pages, typically painstakingly focusing on using the fewest words to convey the message. Being able to take the author’s countless hours of research, writing and re-writing and download that information into our brains over the course of a few days or weeks is a real gift.

Learning (80% of Days)

In addition to the reading time above, I also spent some time every day dedicated to learning or studying. Most of this, again, was related to my career. A massive accomplishment was completing the entire “Google IT Support Professional Certificate” program on Coursera, a 6 month sequence of courses designed to equip you with the knowledge to do tech support. Although I took this on only to have a better understanding of computers and enhance my existing career rather than switch careers, I still felt very proud of the journey and all I learned. I also completed the entire “Data Scientist with Python” program from DataCamp. These two endeavors upskilled me significantly and helped me feel much more confident with my technical foundation.

I’ve read and heard that some of the biggest leaders in almost every industry carve out a chunk of time every day or week to learn new things or read. Want to differentiate yourself? Cultivate your growth and learning mindset!

Conclusion

Thank you so much for reading about my journey, and let me know if you’d like me to dive deeper into any of these topics. If I can be of support on your own journey, feel free to connect with and shoot me a message on LinkedIn.