It’s that time again. The new year is starting, and everyone’s socials are littered with goals and plans for the coming year. This time last year, I wrote a post about what I hoped to accomplish in 2025, and the time of reckoning is upon me.

So without further ado, let’s look back at the goals I set myself for 2025, and what I did (and didn’t) accomplish.

Work Life

I set myself two goals for my work life:

• No more team changes
• Work on my leadership and management skills

Well, I managed half of them. I spent a decent amount of time on personal development, looking more into management and taking the time to focus on my people management skills.

At the end of the year, I successfully applied for an internal vacancy as a Lead Developer. So while I did spend more time on personal development, I have also changed teams once again. Task failed successfully?

Side Projects

My ever growing list of side projects has continued to expand. My goal here was a simple one: ship something.

I’m happy to say I accomplished that, although it wasn’t anything I had been expecting to ship. A friend approached me in need of help on a project, and I picked up the backend work for them - seeing it through to launch at the start of September.

It was a bit of a rush job to a tight deadline, but it was delivered and I met my goal in this area for the year.

Gaming Plans

I’ve always gamed a lot. At my peak, in the region of 60-70 hours a week. That has tailed off over the years, but even 7 hours a week still felt like I was gaming too much. So in 2025, I aimed to game less.

With mixed feelings, it’s something I definitely achieved. I gamed significantly less than in previous years, and spent a lot more time on other activities (personal development, side projects, and origami). Weirdly, I don’t even think I missed it?

For something that has been such a huge part of my life, it feels very strange to say I got more enjoyment from writing code than gaming. It made me question why I’ve spent so much time playing games in the past, and what I have missed out on. It is a bittersweet achievement.

Origami

In hindsight, probably my most ambitious set of goals.

I did complete a Senbazuru (folded 1000 paper cranes), something that took longer than I had hoped by the time I spent 3 months’ worth of evenings working on a side project.

On average, I folded more than my original goal of one model a day - but I’d be lying if I claimed it as a success. The original intent was to fold a variety of models, and realistically I just folded a lot of cranes.

I also didn’t get round to making double tissue paper, or working my way through my origami books. Not hugely successful in this area then, but I’m not overly disappointed after folding a thousand cranes.

This Site

I set out to write one post a month. I’ve mostly done that, with I think one slipped month, but still managed over 12 posts total last year. Fairly happy with this one.

Overall

I’m happy with my 2025 for the most part. It was a fairly successful year as far as I’m concerned in terms of goal setting. I didn’t do everything I wanted to, but in hindsight I was perhaps too ambitious in the first place.

What about 2026?

Indeed, what about it. Up until now, this post has focused a lot on last year’s goals, and there is a reason for that.

I’m not bothering to set goals for this year. I have a lot of things I want to learn, and a lot of things I want to do. Perhaps even more ambitious than last year.

I don’t see a point in setting myself up to fail - I know I’m not going to achieve everything I set out to do. But, I will write about some of the things along the way. So watch this space for updates on what I’m reading, folding, and coding in 2026.

Happy new year everyone.