I MADE IT!!!
In which I look at a rough year and realize I somehow landed on my feet
I’m starting to write this at 7 PM on New Years Eve. As you can see, I know how to throw a party. ^_^
I wanted to sit down and write this tonight because tomorrow I’ll probably be out living life all day, and I don’t want to sit with sorting out goals and stuff on the 2nd. I want to get going by then.
That said, I’m a bit worried about how long this post will be because I have a huge amount of stuff to get through. So if it goes long, I’ll post this tonight and post some follow-ups.
I also want to see something today, so I’m going to write these posts stream-of-conscious style. First, I’m going to look at how I feel it went, and then look at actual progress this year.
2025 in Review
Overall, we’re coming in for landing a bit like when you’ve been on a wild roller coaster. My knuckles are white and I cut off my circulation to my hands holding onto the panic handles, but…. now that we’re at then, I’m screaming one big WOOOO!
Did I do everything I set out to do?
On the nitty gritty… no.
But when we zone out and look at my life overall, I think I made significant progress towards the life I wanted when I set up the Life Project.
Now what is this Life Project I speak of?
The Life Project
A few years ago, I realized I was miserable and that the way I was setting my goals was a major cause. So I set out trying something new: putting a bit more of a project management approach to my approach to goals and daily tasks.
It’s still not a perfect approach, but it definitely improved things. The first fundamental: flexible timelines based on the resources I have available.
This was a game changer because of my chronic exhaustion. It cut down my expectations of myself to a more realistic level, and made my overall view of my performance a lot more forgiving.
But yeah, the idea is that I have an overall vision for what I want, which is a life worth living. Then I look at what I need to achieve that. I group these things under themes:
Financial stability
Physical health
Mental Health
Creativity
Faith
Relationships, community, and care
Expansion/Learning
Recreation
La Vie en Rose
Most of these are self explanatory. The last one, is basically the overall theme that rules them all: AM I HAVING A GOOD LIFE?
So there are some things I do just to improve my quality of life, even if they could fall under some of the other themes. But it’s there because I need a reminder of why I’m actually going after all those things: to have a good life. If my life goes out of balance because I’m focusing on any of those things too much, then I’m doing it wrong.
Based on these goals and themes, I then created three missions:
Pivot to my own creative output as my main source of income
Physical, mental, and emotional homeostasis
A deeper connection to soul and spirit
And these things I have spent the entire year working towards. Just…. not in the ways I thought I would do in the beginning of the year because if I’m honest, 75% of the year was a nightmare that would have sent a younger me spiralling into the pits of despair.
Still, I learnt so much about myself this year, and I’m definitely much stronger than I went in on all fronts except financial. (But I’ll get there too.)
There are some key highlights from 2025:
I learnt some hard lessons and finally made some changes that I’ve been too scared to make.
I committed to a new course and kept going, even when things happened to tempt me off course. No, I didn’t refuse opportunities, but I made sure to mould them to what I need in my life before I took them.
I improved my overall health.
I mostly (finally) broke out of a decade-long burnout.
And whereas I went into 2025 thinking it would be done or progressed towards through willpower, the reality was very different. By about March, I realized the secret was questioning things and listening to my instincts.
I’ve started applying my intuition to my health, to my needs, to my hunger, to my decision-making. I’ve stopped fighting my (undiagnosed) ADHD-riddled mind and started playing to its strengths.
I’m pretty sure I achieved none of my lower level projects and targets (more on this in a bit), but the idea was to achieve my missions in the next three to six years. I did them in one. So regardless of how I did on my projects, I won.
Especially considering that I came out a lot wiser and more resilient than I went in.
Projects and Targets
This is where I start actually looking at the nitty gritty of the “goals” I set last year. As you can see, I don’t do standard resolutions. I took the missions I described earlier, then set up projects and sub projects.
These are the ones your familiar with because I’ve been updating you on progress quarterly (more or less)
I’m going to look at those projects in a bit, but before I do, I wanted to consider my work at a meta level.
So first of all, it was a bit of a mixed bag. I only started instituting targets later in the year, but this was a good change. That said, there were a few times where I felt overwhelmed and out of focus because I repeatedly set an amount of tasks that would be impossible for people to do.
While I often managed it, I don’t really think it’s healthy to push that barrier, so I think I need to rethink how I set targets and use them to focus me for my projects.
Break Even
Overall
The idea for this project was to make enough money to cover my costs and debts. I’m not technically there yet, but it’s a work in progress. I had several wins where I’ve either settled debts or replenished some assets/resources that I need for the next phase, so I’m happy with this, even if I can’t call this a win yet.
Targets for Q4
Balance Contract Work with Other Trickles
This is still a work in progress because this time of the year is just hectic all round. Still, I feel like I did get a bit better at this. Some supplements started taking in November were a game-changer.
Use income from contract work to stabilize my life for the next year as far as possible
I had several wins here, although I couldn’t save as much as I wanted. At the moment, though, settling debts is a bigger priority, and I sorted several. Unfortunately, one of my cats needed an operation, which means I have extra debts to settle, but no regrets. I’d rather have my cat than the money.
In addition, it’s looking like I’ll get a contract extension, in which case, I will probably be able to be a bit more aggressive in paying off debts. Cause man, a clean slate sounds nice.
But since I’ll only know for sure in February, I can’t really do any goal-setting around this yet.
Have a total of four trickles up and running, even if they don’t earn $50 yet.
I managed three, which honestly was surprising considering how chaotic things got with the contract work I had to do.
Improve Mobility, Circulation, and Energy through Exercise
Overall
While I didn’t do this to the extent I wanted, I got a LOT done, where I’m almost back to pre-Covid levels of activity from day to day. That’s still a ways short from actually being healthy, but considering where I started, it’s a definite win.
Target for Q4
I wanted to go from 15 to 30 minutes of physical activity per day (on average), but I didn’t really do enough to track to what extent I achieved it. I was very active especially in December, though, so it wasn’t a loss, but the types of activities I did were more walking and movements associated with shopping, baking and cooking… less pilates and swimming.
Publish Book 3
Overall
I finally hit some kind of stride after a rough year, but alas I’m woefully behind where I wanted to be.
Target for Q4
I’m still on the content editing stage. I did manage to set a good pace, but alas, work chaos ate into my editing time. DEFINITELY something that needs fixing.
Go Up a Level in French
Overall
Not even close. Finances messed with my ability to pay for the resources I needed, and then the over-reliance on AI has made the free resources I used to rely on useless. My Q4 target was to find a replacement, but then my cat’s emergency surgery wiped out that attempt too. Soo… I didn’t get anywhere close to where I wanted to be this year, but that’s okay.
Find and Follow My Passions
Overall
I monitored weekly whether I did things that ignited my passions, gave me life and built my energy levels. Yesterday, I filled in my last “week”, and I never did this more than a week later than planned. If I did, it was because I took time away from my computer to refill my wells, and not because I was wasting time on meaningless nonsense. I’m proud to say most of my updates were about “playing”, which is to say indulging in creativity just for the sake of being creative and not as a form of productivity, and rest. I obviously did other things too, but those two are definitely the rechargers of my batteries at the moment, so I’m glad to say I consistently made time for that this year.
And the Tireds Caught Up
Yep. Worked on this for almost three hours and now I need a nap, so I guess I’ll come back to my goals for tomorrow after all. Realized I do have some time…. Hopefully.