🦄 Charging into 2026 in My Own Colors

Introduction

Every year when the season for reflection and new year's resolutions comes around, I'm reminded anew that life doesn't unfold the way I planned and imagined. This time too, reading back the resolutions I wrote when welcoming 2025, it strikes me freshly what I had hoped that year would look like. This year especially, I had barely written any blog posts or done periodic check-ins, so reading those resolutions again after a full year felt particularly fresh. That in turn reminded me how important it is to write things down. Without written reflections and resolutions, I wouldn't even have the opportunity to look back and reckon with what my past self was thinking. So this year I'm setting a new goal: writing quarterly mid-year reflection posts as regular check-ins.

🐍 2025 Reflection

Relationships

• I had resolved to focus on deepening the density of my relationships in 2025. It's hard to assess this quantitatively. But my sense is that I made real efforts to meet more often and spend richer time with the people I was already in contact with, and I found myself building relationships where we check in regularly, ask how each other is doing, and witness each other's growth up close.
• In January 2025, I was able to live in the U.S. for a month, made possible by the help of many colleagues at my current company. While there, and after safely returning, I felt so grateful to everyone who helped — but as time passed, I caught myself growing numb to that gratitude, suddenly realizing "that memory from back then was only a year ago?" I'm reminded again to remember those who freely extended a helping hand in my life, to express my gratitude, and to become someone who can offer that kind of help to others.
• In 2025, my maternal grandmother passed away, which led me to think deeply about family relationships. I've come to believe that even within family, it's appropriate not to keep people in your life who don't wish you well and act with hostility. At the same time, I find myself pondering what efforts I need to make so that the new family I will build in the future becomes a sturdy, mutually supportive bond.

Wealth

• I had set a bold goal for 2025 of "launching one service per month" toward personal project success. This goal gave me the monthly pressure of asking, "What have I actually done this month?" — pushing myself forward. Reviewing the record of what I attempted each month, it was gratifying to naturally recall what I was thinking when I started each project and what I learned from it. The projects I pursued: a YouTube vlog, a gratitude journal bot, an experience in the short-term rental market, an autobiography service, and a KRW liquidity dashboard. I didn't make one service per month exactly, but this goal was a great motivator for steadily growing my willingness and effort toward non-employment income.
• The biggest outcome from my personal project efforts last year was starting an autobiography business. Its greatest strength is that the better we do the work, the clearer and greater the value we deliver to clients. It's not a business I pursue for money alone — the sense of accomplishment in delivering genuine value is immense.
• Since December, I've been seriously using AI Agents 🤖, and this has given me enormous momentum heading into 2026 for generating non-employment income!
• The 2025 economic environment was a year of significant macro-level turbulence. I'm grateful that on the investment side, I avoided major setbacks and didn't underperform relative to the average.

Work

• 2025 was a year in which I didn't focus on sharpening my professional expertise in my day job. It's partly an excuse — but it was also a year of feeling a certain helplessness: in a company that has passed a certain scale and growth phase, my individual influence is small, and market or company conditions determine results more than my own ability. So I came to think of my current job as the means to provide short-term economic stability, and to think separately about the "work" where I can bring real expertise and strengths.
• That said, there's always something to learn in any situation, so throughout the year I took the lead — as a project manager — in building a more efficient software development lifecycle: creating necessary processes and eliminating unnecessary ones. Any organization has existing inertia, and members don't welcome newly changing processes. Learning firsthand how to sequence and calibrate communication to actually transplant change into an organization was a lesson of its own.
• Revisiting my 2025 year-opening review of How Will You Measure Your Life? as part of this reflection, I found a resolution Clayton Christensen made to himself around career choices. It feels like something I, still in the process of defining what my work is, should hold onto.

"I have never once made a decision about my career based on salary or status. Instead, I have always asked whether the opportunity will give me an experience worth fighting my way through."

Health

• My 2025 goal of reaching 23 kg of muscle mass ended in failure. It's even worse — my current muscle mass is 1 kg lower than what I measured on January 1, 2025 🤯 There's no room for excuses here; I simply need to reflect and make muscle gain a higher priority in the new year.
• In 2025, I ran a total of 402.92 km, achieving my goal! I had set a target of running 365 km total — the equivalent of 1 km per day. Checking in periodically on how much I'd run, intuitive feedback like "Today is day 185 of the year but I've only run 120 km..." or "If I run just 10 km per week from now, I can still hit the goal" helped me stay consistent in the second half of the year and achieve the target. It reinforced two lessons: intuitive goal-setting works, and mid-course check-ins play an important role in actually hitting goals.
• In 2025, I started tennis 🎾 as a new sport. I'd tried learning before but always stopped after 2–3 months, repeatedly. This time I decided I needed to commit intensively to move past the beginner stage, so I paid for 2 lessons per week for 3 months. I've been keeping up with the lessons well and naturally spending more time on tennis. I'm proud of myself for starting a new sport and genuinely sustaining it.

Reading & Writing

• In 2025, I read a total of 16 books — falling short of my target of "1 book every 2 weeks = 26 books total." Looking at the monthly reading counts, periods of overseas business trips or travel clearly had almost no reading. Since there will always be temporarily busy or travel-heavy stretches, I'll focus more on reading during quieter times to build up a buffer.
• Writing was the area I neglected most in 2025. Aside from a few book reviews, I barely posted anything on the blog... Increasingly, I find myself writing text with AI across more and more domains — and the more I do, the more I worry about losing the ability to craft a fine sentence on my own. I want to take this sense of urgency as a positive motivation to return to writing practice in the new year.
• I've always wanted beautiful handwriting ✍🏻. One day I happened to see a friend writing in a notebook — the handwriting had such a distinct personal style that it left a real impression on me. So I bought a book on handwriting improvement and have been working on correcting my script. I haven't practiced on graph paper since elementary school, and each practice session surprises me with how it engages muscles in my hand I don't usually use, and how I can focus purely on the act of writing with no stray thoughts. I'm proud of myself for finally turning this long-held wish into action.

🦄 2026 Resolutions

Relationships

• I am deeply grateful that I have always been blessed with good people in my life. I have always been the one receiving more help than I give — this year I want to make it a year of giving first, and giving more.
• I've written down the names of the people most precious to me in my personal notebook — those I want to make more intentional effort to care for this year. I'll keep that list in mind, visit it regularly, and check whether I'm actually showing up for them.

Wealth

• I will reach ₩100 million in revenue from my own business.
• I will build a Money Machine that generates more than ₩3 million per month using AI Agents.
• As Warren Buffett says, I will invest time in choosing stocks I can hold peacefully every night.
• Until now, I haven't seriously thought about how to build real estate assets. This year I will study and research enough to establish a personal real estate investment plan.

Work

• I'll maintain my standing goal of raising the market value of my skills by 50%.
• Native-level English proficiency remains a constant goal. As a concrete study method, I plan to make full use of my current English session leader role — actively studying the feedback reports on my spoken English and submitting shadow video assignments every week.
• I'll continue looking for opportunities to expand my current career trajectory toward moving to the U.S.

Health

• This year, I will absolutely build and maintain 23 kg of skeletal muscle mass.
• Since I hit my running goal in 2025, I'll raise it slightly this year — to 400 km.
• Tennis, my new sport, will no longer be abandoned midway. I'll persist and emerge as a 1-year-veteran tennis beginner by year-end. I'll keep that vision of myself happily rallying on the court at the end of the year as my motivation.
• I'll continue the monthly intermittent fasting rhythm that worked well last year.

Reading & Writing

• This year, I will absolutely, without fail, hit "1 book every 2 weeks = 26 books total."
• For writing, I'll reduce the target slightly but make sure I don't stop entirely. I'll write 6 Money Machine analysis posts and a quarterly reflection post each quarter.
• This year I'll get my new handwriting style into my hands and write letters often to the people I care about most.

Closing (and simultaneously: beginning 2026)

I'm deeply grateful that the emotion I felt reflecting on 2025 is happiness. When I set my 2025 resolutions, I had wanted to make it "a year of finally focusing on myself." Looking back, the current me genuinely feels the stability and happiness that goal was aiming for. Getting to this state didn't actually require much conscious effort from me last year. If anything, it was a year of letting go. That's why even in this reflection, there's much to be sorry about — in writing, in relationships. But the gaps where I fell short were filled and covered by the good people around me. For that, I am truly grateful and happy.

Through last year, I found a clearer sense of my own colors and direction. This year, without hesitation, I'm going to charge forward in that direction with full momentum. I promise to meet you here on this blog more often this year — and to everyone who read this far, I sincerely hope 2026 fills your life with good people, all around you 😘