I skipped similar posts for the last three years because I didn’t feel like exposing too much of my personal seemingly worryless life all the while so many of my relatives and people in my home country of origin are in distress. But, maybe, I’m wrong to close myself for reasons I cannot control. I did set goals for 2023, 2024, 2025 and did track them the same as for the past 16 years (!). Sometimes I think that I should have had more success in life by now if I was setting the right goals and if they were ambitious enough. At the same time, everyone has their own path in life, contributing variables, including luck and misfortune, and demons to fight in their heads. I am of the opinion that life is a struggle. A struggle to fight off suffering and grow, otherwise there is no purpose. Time will show how mistaken I have been, but after all, at the scale of this universe, I’m nothing. My life is for me to live.

2025 Recap

Moved to the US. Joined Meta. Made almost 2x more money than previous year. Wrote 24 blog posts. Read 4 books (a lot less than I wanted). Built a habit of single coffee a day and waking up at 6:30AM. Learned some Muay Thai (2x/week). Took swimming lessons and took kids through swimming classes. Went to 7 metal concerts and went into the death wall mosh pit a few times. Cut my social media consumption almost to 0. Failed at building more muscle. Failed to run 10k <48m. Averaged 348 active min / week. Made new climbing friends. Climbed outside. Explored WA, OR, HI with family. Solo-hiked a volcano. Drove on sand dunes. Drove fun sports cars. Built unforgettable experiences. Paddle boarded and biked. Vibe-coded bunch. 3D printed bunch. Realized that time has no mercy. Didn’t give up.

2026 Goals

I have very rigorous and detailed plans for 2026 with weekly tracking, milestone check-ins, and mechanisms to make it work. Over the years, I tried, simple lists, % based approaches, OKR-based mechanisms, latest I have is some hybrid approach with multi-layers, weekly routines and check-ins, and AI assisted course-correction:

Vision (Level 0) → Areas (Level 1) → Annual Goals (Level 2) → Weekly Routines (Level 3)

Vision: Live a healthy, worry-free, experience-rich, financially independent, and fulfilling life. Close the gap between reality and the dream lifestyle, while building a legacy and having no regrets.

  • Health & Sport: Stay healthy for long, have a healthy strong attractive body and sharp mind. Have a comprehensive health protocol that covers strength, cardio, mobility, and nutrition. This can include weights, kickboxing, climbing, running, and rest days to have proper recovery periods. Balanced food. Good sleep. Enough water.
  • 2026
    • Gain extra 8lbs (4kg) muscle weight (150lbs->158lbs).
    • Run 10k race (good time ~52min or less despite extra weight).
    • Maintain climbing performance despite extra muscle weight (V4-V7 range).
    • Can swim 4 full laps freestyle non-stop. Take 2+ swimming lessons.
    • Video of perfect shadow boxing I can be proud to share online.
    • 3 macrocycle rest weeks with minimum activities (50-70% less)
    • Weekly routines:
      • 400 active minutes / week (vigorous 2x, regular 1x).
      • 3+ cardio / week (e.g. 2 kickboxing + 1 run).
      • 2+ strength / week (e.g. 2 climbing + strength session in the end).
      • 1 dedicated strength training w/ barbell / week
      • In bed at 10:00PM, alarm 6:25AM
      • Daily intake: creatine [counter], D3 and/or multi [counter], protein [counter]
      • Healthy food: 3 times a day, diverse, calorie surplus daily (3,000kcal) tracked with Gemini.
      • Min 2.5L (85oz) water. Tracked with Gemini.
  • Financial / Career / Professional: Goal: Increase net worth and streams of income to enjoy freedom of time and life experiences. Target: $XM net worth by age 47. Explore alternative streams of income and potential new terrains. Semi-retirement post 47.
    • 2026 FAANG high-comp (optimize RSUs, bonuses, 401k etc). Climb the corporate ladder as long as I enjoy it and as long as it contributes to the other areas of life. Spendings <30% of post tax income to supercharge savings/investments.
    • Goals..
      • Max out 401k & Backdoor Roth IRA
      • …
      • Weekly:
        • Spend 1h time-boxed on investing (learn & act).
        • … 
  • Family: Set up kids for success in life…
  • Worry-free: …
  • Experience-rich: …
  • Legacy / Growth / Learning / Fulfillment: …
  • No Regrets: …

Each and every section is as rigorous as my “Health” section. The mechanisms that make these things work for me:

  • Routines & Habits
    • For example, I had a desire for a single coffee a day routine. I built it in 2025, for 2026 I don’t even have to write it down as it is going to be a default.
  • Weekly
    • On a weekly basis I do 2 things:
      • reviewing annual goals and deadlines to see if there is anything I can do next week or if I’ve done the past week
      • being accountable by copy-pasting my weekly report template and filling-it in with completion
  • Course-correction and AI support
    • We live in the age of AI. I found that this year AI will be indispensable for planning, tracking, and adjusting my trajectory to achieve these goals.
    • Specifically for each Area I have a running thread with LLM asking it to identify blind spots, critique me, explore, brainstorm, etc.
    • Tracking with AI. For instance, I found it working perfectly to track my nutrition intake: “Add 22oz water”, “add glass of water with creatine”, “add 2 turkey bacon white sandwiches from Starbucks”, etc. It tracks my day perfectly.

In life “you can have virtually anything you want, but you can’t have everything you want”. It might look like I’m trying to do too much with my plan. The reality is that there is the cost in not doing many things. Like, not watching TV, killing my social media consumption, not socializing enough, not having many friends. The cost is in pushing through bad moods and grinding at work when I’d rather be doing something else. It is the constant fear that I might not be spending enough time with my kids or enjoying the money I have right now.

To decide is literally to cut off, so I’m trading off things. I am cutting off comfort to make space for these goals. There will be collateral damage, but I would rather pay the price of trying than the price of drifting. Time will tell if the trade was worth it, “but in the end, it doesn’t even matter”.