It’s time for a little reflection and review. Each December, I conduct my Annual Review (this is my sixth year) and I’ve found the process useful every time.

As always, this Annual Review will answer three questions.

1. What went well this year?
2. What didn’t go so well this year?
3. What did I learn?

Before I begin, I should mention one thing: It’s always a little weird for me to share these Annual Reviews because when I talk about the good stuff it feels like I’m bragging and when I talk about the bad stuff it feels like I’m being strangely vulnerable with the world. That said, I still think it’s important because talking about how many workouts I did or articles I wrote provides proof that I am “walking the walk.”

While it is personally helpful for me to reflect on the last year, it also shows that I have skin in the game. I’m not just dishing out opinions when I write about things. I’m putting these ideas to practice in my own life.

Ultimately, every Annual Review is a personal process. This is what my year looked like, not a suggestion of what yours should include. Everyone runs their own race. That said, feel free to use this format for your own Annual Review and figure out what steps you want to take next.

1. What went well this year?

Let’s start with the good stuff.

Atomic Habits. I feel like I’ve told everyone within earshot at this point, but in case you haven’t heard: I published a book this year!

Longtime readers will know that this has been a multi-year battle. I announced the book deal in my 2015 Annual Review, I shared my writing struggles in my 2016 Annual Review, and I was (finally) nearing completion in my 2017 Annual Review.

I was still working on the manuscript in January and February of this year. If you had tapped me on the shoulder in the middle of my frantic final edits and told me the book would become a bestseller before the year ended, I almost certainly would have cried with relief.

As 2018 draws to a close, Atomic Habits has been out for 11 weeks (published on October 16, 2018). I did every single thing I could to make this book a success (starting with spending 3 years writing the best book possible), but the reception has outpaced even my high hopes.

Highlights include:

I don’t know what else to say, so I’ll just say “Thank You.” It means so much to me that you are finding the book useful and sharing it with others, and that my work is making some small difference in the world. If you’re interested in buying a copy, click here to see the different options.

Reach and Impact. It’s hard to quantify, but I feel like my work is making a bigger impact this year than in previous years. Maybe it’s just the excitement of seeing people read the book.

Regardless, I have said from Day 1 that I want to optimize for reach over revenue. I don’t care about making the most money. I just want to share the best ideas I can find with the greatest number of people. And this year we reached more people than ever before.

Here’s what the year looked like:

• 9 new articles published this year (browse my best articles)
• 241,827 new email subscribers this year
• 453,037 total email subscribers as of December 31, 2018
• 10,600,219 unique visitors this year
• 36,558,938 unique visitors since launching on November 12, 2012

Despite the success, there are some downsides hidden within these numbers. I’ll discuss them in the next section.

Travel. After not visiting a new country in 2017, I decided I would make travel a priority in 2018. And holy moly, did I travel this year.

My travel highlights for 2018 include:

• 7 countries (5 new): Argentina, Brazil, Chile, England, France, Japan, United States.
• 15 states (2 new): Arizona, California (4x), Florida (3x), Illinois (2x), Kansas, Massachusetts (2x), Nebraska, Nevada, New York (5x!), North Carolina (2x), Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington (2x).

I continue to follow many of the strategies mentioned in my Ultralight Travel Guide, but I’ve also begun to implement some new approaches to accommodate for the number of speaking engagements I have do while traveling. I’ll update that page soon.

Speaking. I’m definitely a better speaker and presenter at the end of this year than I was at the beginning of it. Most of that is just due to practice. Thanks to the success of the book, I’m being asked to speak much more than I was previously. I’m excited to do more of this in 2019 and I put together a page with upcoming events. (If you’d like me to speak at your company or event, you can submit a request here.)

Charity work. Earlier this year, I settled on Against Malaria Foundation (AMF) as our primary charity partner. AMF distributes nets to protect children, pregnant mothers, and families from mosquitos carrying malaria. It is one of the most cost-effective ways to extend life and fulfills my bigger mission to spread healthy habits around the globe.

My plan is to donate 5 percent of after-tax profits to charitable causes, which means you are helping us contribute any time you buy my book or purchase a course or read an article. So far, our contribution has led to:

• 4,685 malaria nets distributed
• 8,433 people protected
• 87 years of additional life
• 2 lives saved

Now that we have this charity partnership, I like to remind myself that I’ll never have an unproductive day. Even if I fail to check items off my own to-do list, as long as the business brings in one dollar, some of that money will go toward making the world a better place.

2. What didn’t go so well this year?

And now the not-so-fun stuff.

Deadlines. I’m not sure I met a single deadline this year. Book deadline? Please. I blew that by more than a year. (Thank you to my publisher for being so accommodating.) Recording a revamp of my habits course? I originally planned that for the summer and it still hasn’t happened. Heck, even this annual review is going out a day late.

This problem extends to little daily “deadlines” too—like arriving on time to meetings. I’ve been told that I have a very optimistic view of time, which I think is the nicest way to say, “You’re continually miscalculating how much you can get done in each block of time.”

When some people have an extra 15 minutes before an appointment, they think, “Great! I can leave now and arrive early.” I think, “Perfect. I can do 15 more minutes of whatever I’m doing right now, leave at the last moment necessary, and arrive with one second to spare.”

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what to do about this. I like having an optimistic view of time. The way I see it, I want to fit as much as I can into each hour. The upside is I get a lot done throughout the year. The downside is I have very little margin of safety. If everything goes to plan, I can get it all done. If something doesn’t go perfectly, a deadline is missed.

Weightlifting. In 2018, I exercised 141 times for an average of 11.8 workouts per month. Those numbers might look good at first glance, but both are a fair step down from last year (more on that in a minute).

When I broke the year down in detail, the issues became obvious. You can tell which months I turned in the manuscript (February), launched the book (October), and did a media tour across the US (December).

Workouts per month in 2018:

• January – 18
• February – 7
• March – 12
• April – 14
• May – 10
• June – 16
• July – 14
• August – 14
• September – 12
• October – 8
• November – 11
• December – 5

I am proud of myself in one respect, however. I could have said, “Oh, I’m launching a book in October so I can’t work out.” But getting 8 workouts in was better than zero. Managing to make it into the gym despite a crazy schedule (even if it’s only for 15 minutes) is important for maintaining momentum.

My best lifts of the year were:

• Back Squat – 400 lbs (181 kg) for 1 rep
• Bench Press – 280 lbs (127 kg) for 1 rep
• Deadlift – 500 lbs (226 kg) for 1 rep

These numbers are pretty good for me, but none of them are personal bests. I have been training fairly regularly for about ten years now and I believe this is the first time I have conducted an annual review and not hit a PR in at least one major lift.

Writing trajectory. I only wrote 10 articles in 2017, which was my lowest total ever. Somehow, I managed to lower the bar even further in 2018. The drop in output impacted other areas of the business too. Website traffic, for example, was highest in January and February and declined throughout the year.

In the short-term, it’s not a huge issue. But as I wrote in Atomic Habits, “It doesn’t matter how successful or unsuccessful you are right now. What matters is whether your habits are putting you on the path toward success. You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.”

The key point is not that millions are visiting the site right now (current results), but that the trend is headed downward (current trajectory). Now that the book is complete, I need to focus on rebuilding my weekly writing habit in 2019.

3. What did I learn this year?

Some of my major lessons from this year include:

If you don’t know what to do, focus on the fundamentals. Progress doesn’t need to be complicated. Skip all of the cutting edge tactics and focus on the key habits that deliver great return.

Here are a few habits that have a high rate of return in life:

• sleep 8+ hours each day
• lift weights 3x week
• go for a walk each day
• save at least 10 percent of your income
• read every day
• drink more water and less of everything else
• leave your phone in another room while you work

Mastery requires both impatience and patience. The impatience to have a bias toward action, to not waste time, and to work with a sense of urgency each day. The patience to delay gratification, to wait for your actions to accumulate, and to trust the process.

Curiosity is crucial. Increasingly, I feel an eagerness to learn is one of the most crucial skills in life. If you’re not curious, I’m not sure if there is much others can do to help you. But if you’re eager to learn, even if you aren’t particularly talented, then so much is possible.

Entrepreneurship is never as sexy on the inside as it appears on the outside. Whoever your entrepreneurial idols are, they have plenty of headaches behind the scenes.

You are only as mentally tough as your life demands you to be. Life will throw plenty of challenges your way, but there will be easy days too. An easy life fashions a mind that can only handle ease. Like a muscle that atrophies without use, mental strength fades unless it is tested. When life doesn’t challenge you, challenge yourself.

The margin between your best performance and your average performance is less than you think. In 2017, I averaged 15.7 workouts per month. In 2018, I averaged 11.7 workouts per month. At first glance, I considered it a modest difference. Only 4 workouts less each month? That’s about one less per week. And I was still making it into the gym consistently.

But then I realized I didn’t set a personal record in any major lift in 2018. Conversely, I hit PRs in nearly every major lift in 2017. One workout per week doesn’t sound like much, but that was the difference between my average performance and my best performance.

Move toward the next thing, not away from the last thing. Same direction. Completely different energy.

No is a decision. Yes is a responsibility. When you say no, you are only saying no to one option. When you say yes, you are saying no to every other option. One of my key themes in 2019 is to think carefully about what I say yes to and make sure I protect my time.

That’s it! As always, thanks for reading. Happy New Year! 1

The Annual Review Archives

This is a complete list of Annual Reviews I have written.

Another year complete. Here’s a quick recap of 2019, which also happened to be one of the craziest years of my life.

As always, this Annual Review will answer three questions.

1. What went well this year?
2. What didn’t go so well this year?
3. What did I learn?

Before we begin, it is worth noting that every Annual Review is a personal process. This is simply an overview of what my year looked like, not advice for how you should live your life. (That said, you are always welcome to use this general format for your own Annual Review.)

1. What went well this year?

I had a lot to celebrate this year.

Book sales. Atomic Habits launched in October 2018, which meant that 2019 was the first full calendar year it had been available. I came in with big aspirations, but I think it’s fair to say that book sales have outpaced my expectations.

As of December 2019:

• Over 1.3 million copies sold worldwide
• 12 consecutive months on the New York Times bestseller list
• 4.8/5 stars on Amazon with over 1,800 reviews
• 4.8/5 stars on Audible with over 25,000 ratings
• Over 15 national TV segments in the United States, Canada, and Australia
• Translated into 40+ languages

This has been a wild ride to say the least.

Of course, the greatest reward has been hearing from readers. It seems like nearly every day someone tells me that Atomic Habits helped them lose weight or start a business or make some positive change in their life. People are finding real value in the ideas and it feels great to produce something useful.

3-2-1 Newsletter. My new project for 2019 was launching the 3-2-1 newsletter, which shares 3 ideas from me, 2 quotes from others, and 1 question to ponder each week. I had been struggling to write consistently during the first half of the year (discussed below) and this new format offered something I knew I could stick with despite a busy schedule. (Sometimes I have to take my own medicine and scale my habits down.)

I didn’t realize it at the time, but it turns out to have been a good idea. I feel good because I’m producing new work each week and the response from subscribers has been quite favorable. Many readers tell me it’s the only newsletter they actually read as soon as it hits their inbox.

Audience growth. I didn’t write many new articles this year, but thanks to the buzz generated by Atomic Habits and the momentum of the 3-2-1 newsletter, audience growth remained strong.

Here’s what the year looked like:

• 5 new articles published this year (fewest ever; discussed in next section)
• 353,970 new email subscribers in 2019
• 586,638 total email subscribers as of December 31, 2019
• 10,848,250 unique visitors in 2019
• 47,308,712 total visitors since launching on November 12, 2012

Even after doing this for a few years, the scale of the internet still blows me away. I’m grateful to have the opportunity to share my work with so many people.

Twitter and Instagram. I didn’t put much energy into social media for a long time, but the web has evolved in the last five years and social media plays an important role now. This was the first year I put consistent effort into Twitter and Instagram, and it paid off. My audience doubled on both platforms this year. Feel free to join the fun and follow me on Twitter and on Instagram.

Travel. This was the craziest travel year of my life and, in all likelihood, the craziest I will ever have. I spent a total of 158 nights away from home this year, which means I spent 43% of the year not sleeping in my own bed. It’s a pace I will probably (hopefully?) never match again.

Here’s the rundown…

18 states (0 new) – Arizona, California (5x!), Colorado (2x), Florida (2x), Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois (2x), Indiana (3x), Maryland, Nebraska (2x), Nevada, New York (5x!), Ohio, Pennsylvania (3x), Tennessee (2x), Texas (2x), Utah, and Virginia.

14 countries (7 new) – Australia (2x!), Canada (2x), Croatia, Denmark, Greece, England, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, and the United Arab Emirates.

While I love traveling, I did feel a bit guilty about the number of flights I took this year and the resulting pollution. In response, I decided to buy carbon offsets not only to cover my flights, but also to be entirely carbon neutral for 2019. I bought mine through Project Wren, and it wasn’t nearly as expensive as I expected.

New restaurants. Whenever I travel to a new city, I like to ask for restaurant recommendations on Twitter. Oh man, did you all set me up this year. I had so many great meals thanks to reader suggestions.

I feel compelled to repay you all by sharing some of my favorites (in no order):

• Los Angeles, CA — fundamental LA
• Denver, CO — Mercantile Provisions
• Honolulu, HI — Marukame Udon
• New York, NY — Manhatta (my meal of the year)
• Philadelphia, PA — Zahav (runner up)
• Melbourne, Australia — Chin Chin
• Sydney, Australia — NOMAD
• Sydney, Australia — Mr. Wong
• Toronto, Canada — PAI
• Dubrovnik, Croatia — Pantarul
• Dubrovnik, Croatia — Taj Mahal
• London, England — Nopi
• London, England — Dishoom
• Athens, Greece — Atitamos
• Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia — Village Park Restaurant
• Singapore — Artichoke
• Singapore — Maxwell Food Court
• Madrid, Spain — El Charrua
• Madrid, Spain — Ten Con Ten

For more ideas (including specific dishes), check out my full list of recommended restaurants.

Speaking. I delivered 31 paid keynote speeches in 2019. This is far and away the most I’ve ever given in a calendar year. Obviously, this is tied directly to the success of Atomic Habits, but I’ve improved my speaking skills as well. My biggest takeaway is that if you write about a topic for years and are forced to clarify your thinking in a well-structured book, then speaking about that topic for one hour becomes much easier to do. (Note: If you’d like me to speak at your company or event, you can submit a request here.)

2. What didn’t go so well this year?

Many wonderful things happened in 2019, but I suffered plenty of growing pains as well.

Writing. For years, my business was built on the consistency of my writing. I published a new article every Monday and Thursday from 2012 to 2015. From 2016 to 2018, I spent most of my time writing Atomic Habits. Overall, those six years were filled with writing.

Then 2019 arrived and the book began to sell far and wide. My attention shifted to promotion mode: interviews, speeches, book signings. It was all great, but there was very little time left for writing. Honestly, I probably wrote more words on Twitter last year than in new articles.

Thankfully, I began to course correct during the second half of the year by writing the 3-2-1 newsletter (as mentioned previously). We’ll see what things look like in 2020, but if I’m going to write another book at some point, I will need to carve out more time to write.

Weightlifting. Everything has a tradeoff. It turns out that it is hard to maintain consistency in the gym when you are on the road for nearly half the year. In 2019, I completed 91 workouts for an average of 7.6 per month, which is better than nothing, but a steep drop off from previous years.

Workouts per month in 2019:

• January – 16
• February – 6
• March – 4
• April – 8
• May – 4
• June – 2(!)
• July – 12
• August – 8
• September – 9
• October – 15
• November – 1(!)
• December – 6

When looking at these numbers, the thing that sticks out to me is that my worst months were the months I had lots of international travel (March, June, and November). I’ll need a better plan for exercising in foreign locations in the future.

Given how inconsistent things were, I didn’t bother with max lifts this year and just did rep work most days. As a result, my best lifts of the year were:

• Back Squat – 330 lbs (150 kg) for 5 rep
• Bench Press – 245 lbs (111 kg) for 5 rep
• Deadlift – 415 lbs (188 kg) for 5 rep

This marks the second year in a row when I failed to hit an all-time PR in any major lift. Admittedly, it’s unlikely you’re going to reach a personal best every year anyway, but nonetheless I have a lot of catching up to do in the gym in 2020.

Email. I joked earlier this year that my email response time is either 3 minutes or 3 months. Problem is… it’s not really a joke. I’m terrible at answering email. Honestly, this wouldn’t bother me except for one reason: it bothers other people.

My poor email response times came back to burn me multiple times this year. Sometimes it was a missed opportunity due to a delayed reply. Other times people became annoyed or frustrated, or thought I was intentionally ignoring them.

I’m not sure the best way to handle this. I get more email than I can manage and answering emails is certainly not as important as writing the next article or book. And yet, people expect responses within a day or two. One thing is for sure, I’ll probably need a new email approach in 2020.

3. What did I learn this year?

Some of my major lessons from this year include:

Move fast. The importance of moving fast was clarified for me over the last year. The original release date for Atomic Habits was set for March 2019. I pushed to move the date forward six months to October 2018 because I didn’t want to miss out on holiday sales around Christmas. My publishing team agreed, everyone worked their tails off, and we had a fabulous launch in October.

What happened next was even more important: The book was available in January when everyone was thinking about New Year’s Resolutions. As a result, Atomic Habits jumped out to a very strong start during the fall and winter. By the time we arrived at the original launch date in March, we had already sold nearly 500,000 copies.

In this case, the difference between waiting and acting was massive. We all know exactly what would have happened if we had waited: time would have flown by, somehow planning the launch would have expanded to fill all of that time, and six months of sales would have vanished.

Growing up takes time. For the last three years my business has been stuck in that awkward pre-teen stage where one minute it acts like a full-fledged adult and the next minute you realize it’s covered in pimples and doesn’t know how to control all four limbs at the same time.

But in 2019—maybe!—it turned a corner. The to-do list is still endless, but that’s what running a business is like. It does feel like I’m starting to find my footing, however. The strategy is becoming more clear. The products are gaining a foothold. The fog is lifting ever-so-slightly. I have spent nearly a decade as a full-time entrepreneur, but I’m finally uncovering a clear roadmap of what the future of the business looks like.

A life well-lived is a life well-edited. My biggest area of growth this year was prioritization. I had to become much better at saying no— and I’m still not very good at it!

In short: Prune away the inessential. Pour yourself into what remains.

That’s it! As always, thanks for reading. Happy New Year! 1

The Annual Review Archives

This is a complete list of Annual Reviews I have written.