2025 Reflections and 2026 Goals

In 2025, I pivoted from setting 10 yearly mission statements to writing and setting quarterly goals. This was a change inspired by an Ali Abdaal video I had watched on YouTube– I don't remember which exact one.

If you want to look back at my 4 quarterly goals posts this past year, here are their links:

• Q1: 2024 Reflections and 2025 Goals
• Q2: Looking Back at Q1 and Forward at Q2
• Q3: Reflecting on Q2 and H1 Looking Forward to Q3 and On
• Q4: Q3 Reflections, Q4 Decisions

Looking back, quarterly goal-setting allowed me to reflect more frequently throughout the year, ensuring I was making incremental progress towards my long-term goals. I started the year by setting quarterly goals and a half-year vision; I later decided that the half-year vision wasn't as important, and instead focused on chunking my focus into quarters– groups of 3 months.

My prior year blogs would include goals that spanned different categories within my life: travel, fitness, language learning, music, and career. This past year, my goals were largely career-focused. The way I define my career is very loose– it actually includes a good amount of work I do for long-term hobby projects. Projects that I do that could make money, but don't need to make money.

In 2025, I relaunched my YouTube channel and posted my reaction to Jonathan Wong's reaction to my original reaction to the music video of his song Run. My interest in creative projects started on YouTube, but it's not where I've landed in my creative journey and self-expression.

I also made a lot of progress with the "joke musical turned into a serious project" this year. We (my friend and I) now have 3 collaborators with whom I will need to follow up in the new year as we focus on wrapping up songs. I'm having a lot of fun building something unique and exciting. It's allowed me to exercise storytelling, songwriting, music-making, and embody the founder's mindset–the ability to grind away at boring yet necessary tasks for a greater goal.

Fitness took a hit this past year, but it's a constant undercurrent in my day-to-day life as I toggle between rock climbing, yoga, ice skating, calisthenics, and badminton. I took 20 sessions of beginner Swedish and won't be continuing into 2026, though I will be using Duolingo to further my vocabulary and grammar skills.

What I'm Bringing Into 2026

Hank Green once said that the way to success is to follow momentum. By doing different things and acquiring different skills, we collect tools that we can use towards projects that lead to "success". In that vein, I'm carrying into 2026 the momentum for the musical project and the momentum of my tech career.

Priorities for Q1 2026

In the first 3 months of 2026, I am focused on 2 projects:

1. The musical. Currently, the pitch is as follows: "A story about characters who are nearing 30, faced with obstacles out of their control in their life, watching others seemingly do well. Through the power of friendship and community, they find solace in each other and take steps towards a more fulfilling life."
2. My tech career. I've landed myself in such a fun role within tech consulting that I've realized that I want to add "launch a product" to my bucket list. I've been thinking about Product Management for the past year or two, and after reading Divide and Conquer and making my way through The Product Manager's Survival Guide, two very good PM books, I feel ready to step into the role itself. I've also recently learned about Product Operations, but I think that neither of these roles has a very explicit job description that is consistent across the industry, so it basically boils down to "the logistics behind building and launching the product that aren't the engineering itself".

The Musical

With the musical, I'm seeking to partially build the project in public. What this means is that I will share parts of the journey as progress is being made, in part to share the vision with future supporters, but also to validate the work that's gone into the project. This creative project is purely one of passion and of my fervor to share this story. I'll be learning a lot about an industry that I don't know much about, and I'll have a lot of fun going deep with it and making connections along the way.

My Tech Career

I've heard a lot of people make the transition from tech consulting to product management, but given the job market and the competitiveness of the tech industry, it may be quite difficult to break in. What I do hope for is to make some really solid connections to help make this transition easier.

Secondly, I believe that oftentimes, when we aren't given the opportunities to be paid for something we believe we're capable of, we just have to build that opportunity ourselves. This ties back into the musical project because ultimately, a musical is a piece of entertainment, and it, by definition, is a product (a show) that could be sold. It doesn't iterate or "get better" like a normal consumer product, but it certainly goes through iterations before launching in a premiere production.

Outside of that creative project that showcases entrepreneurialism, I'll perhaps vibe code another project of my own. Sometimes, I think tech is overkill for a lot of issues, but maybe there's something that I can build myself that solves a problem for someone else with the skills I have or can quickly learn. And isn't the act of learning what AI is good for?

Themes for 2026

Largely through this upcoming year, I want to continue to take risks within all aspects of my life. I want to focus on eliminating a small amount of decision fatigue by creating some semblance of a daily or weekly routine. I generally do live quite spontaneously, though I want to test how "locked in" I can be throughout the week.

I "fucked around and found out" in 2025. In 2026, I want to add more whimsy to the things I do. Keep having fun and make silly things that do something terribly simple while teaching myself a thing or two along the way.