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ANNUAL LIFE REVIEW 2025

The Sculpting (Part 2) 🏺

Below is a qualitative summary of how the year 2025 unfolded for me. It is based on my goals, achievements, and journal entries composed throughout the year. Its purpose is to serve me as a reminder and you as inspiration. See my quantified review for a more quantitative report.

My theme for 2025 was The Sculpting (Part 2)🏺

This year, like the one before it, I embraced the concept of “sculpting” in a metaphorical sense, aiming to create something new by improving what already exists in my life. My goals included enhancing creativity, refining life areas, simplifying processes, and solidifying strengths. Building on what I’ve already achieved under this umbrella theme in 2024, I’m pleased with the progress made.

I rate myself a 7/10 in fully embracing this yearly theme, as I feel I let it influence my actions.

2025 Goal Success Rates

For 2025, I continued to set quarterly goals rather than yearly ones. I set 10-12 goals per quarter. The achievement rates were 88.3%, 73.0%, 55%, and 51%, with an annual average of 66,6%. This is much lower than last year’s average success rate of 85%. It mainly stemmed from planning failures, and the renovation and book project took far more time than expected.

If I were to summarize all my quarterly goals into annual ones, they might have looked something like this:

Annual Shine Score

In addition to reviewing my goals, I calculate an annual shine score based on a list of actual accomplishments in the seven life realms and compare them to the previous year:

  1. BASE: 10/10 (+1)
    1. Finished Core Renovation and moved into my new home
  2. MIND: 7/10
    1. Read 30 blog posts, 30 papers, and 15 books
    2. Did several smaller online courses and masterclasses
  3. BODY: 7/10
    1. Reached Freeletics Lvl 50
    2. Completed 5 Weeks of the Metamorphosis
    3. Completed 174 Workouts
    4. Lost 2kg twice (but rebounded during Easter and Christmas…)
  4. SOUL: 8/10
    1. Bonded with Jago during Chia’s absence (3+5 weeks)
    2. Got a new Pediatrician for Jago
    3. A lot more family & friends time than usual (retreats, dinners, bdays, activities, festivals, …)
  5. HANDS: 9/10
    1. Wrote & Published 6/7 parts of Scale-Smart
    2. Published 17 Essays on Fractal Productivity, gained 40 subs
    3. Earned $1400 from my writing.
    4. Went through the whole iOS LE again
    5. Gave a Leanpub Interview & The Library Showcase
    6. Released prototype of my Quarters App
  6. SPIRIT: 7/10 (-1)
    1. I visited one new place (Elsass, France).
    2. I had a short weekend trip to Italy with my family.
    3. I watched a lot of movies and series and went to the cinema a few times.
  7. VOICE: 7/10
    1. Did a Q1 retreat on Lake Constance, a Q2 retreat in Italy, and a year-end retreat in France

This makes an overall annual shine score of 55/70 (78%), the same as last year’s.

Progress on my Arcs of Aspiration

In 2025, I crossed off 4 items from my arcs of aspiration (vs. 14 last year)

Here is how everything unfolded for me…

January ‘25

Picture of the month — January ‘25

*My year starts on the Philippines and with an incredible highlight. On our second boat trip we went to the “Hidden Beach” in El Nido. And we had lunch there (all with Jago). After the Philippines we went on to Vietnam — we were lucky to get in without Visa but unlucky that our flight got cancelled and we were stuck at the airport for 6 hours (with Jago). We spent a few days in Hanoi (best Hotel Breakfast ever, we liked the Temple of Literature but got scammed on the Train Café), then split up. I vagabonded Sapa, Nihn Bihn and Hue for 2 weeks on my own. In Sapa the liked the hike through the rice fields, the party evenings and conversations in the sapa homestay and my scooter drives (although I crashed and I hurt myself a little). In Nihn Bihn I also explore the area with the scooter and hiked up the lying dragon mountain which was great. I Hue I explored an abandoned water park, the citadell and had a really good Full Body + Hot Stone Massage (one of the best massages I ever had). I took a motorbike trip from Hue to Da Nang along the famous Wan Pass, but it rained all day long and it was no great experience. I spent my last night in Vietnam in a 5 Start Hotel King Suite. Then reunited with Chia and Jago on 26th. Along all of this, I got a lot of writing done (I released 4 FP posts and pepared 4 more). I created a Moving Target Board, as a new way to handle longer term goals and devised my ACE Framework. I also finished reviewing the past year and set Q1 goals for 2024. All in all, another great month.

February ‘25

Picture of the month — February ‘25

February was a packed month. I started “sculpting” according to my theme. I had 3 remaining weeks of parental leave. One of those weeks I was sick (all of us, actually), one week we worked on the house, the last week was spent on various things. The highlights were that I managed to get back to work with ease, lost 1kg of body weight, managed to revise my core values and made good progress on the house and my Q1 goals. Challenges were mostly related to Jago. He got 2-3 teeth and was sick with very high fever two times. In general, however, the month was great just like January. It had a little bit of everything. I achieved 47/60 points (78%), one of my highest shine scores ever. And it did not even take into account the house rennovation efforts, which I only started scoring later in the year. I also spent most of the month in NoFap which for the first 2 weeks had surprisingly little impact, then however led to more sex and me being horning.

March ‘25

Picture of the month — March ‘25

March was a varied month. I continued sculpting my body and my PKM system with my migration from Evernote to Obsidian now finally finished. Jago’s first bday arrives, his doctor appointments and toothing made the month mostly revolve around him. At work I spent all time implementing a new licensing subscription model and deepened my knowledge of several frameworks I hadn’t worked with before. My overall shine score was 46/60, only one point below February which I still mostly spent in parental leave. Which is great. My life realm wheel looks rather balanced right now which is superb. My lost weight from February when I was sick returned and I managed to hit the gym 10 times and complete 3 long distance walks.

April ‘25

Picture of the month — April ‘25

April 2024 was a great month for the books. My Sculpting Theme started to get to fruition. I teared down and built up molecules in the house. I finished carving down bits with Evernote and truly felt things coming together in Obsidian. My processes got smoother. I also gained the confidence for bigger moldings in 2024. I determined to start a new attempt at an engineering blog. I joined several high-caliber online courses. I also reached some minor successes with sculpting my physiological vessle.

May ‘25

Picture of the month — May ‘25

May was the special month of the year as Chia went to Thailand for two weeks and I had to take care and sleep with Jago daily. I lived at my parents house but went to my home office for work. This was good in terms of bonding with Jago. After Chia came back, we did two Traufgang hikes (one on our own, one with friends), my thyroid blood work results came back negative, and I gave an interview and showcase to market my new book (unfortunately, to no avail). I gained one of the kgs I lost in April back during Chia’s trip and one after she came back! So, back at 103, my all-time-high… A friend’s recommendation hit hard: LESS CALORIES. And yes, from my year of kcal tracking I can say that I indeed likely had a calorie surplus during the past few month. Ever time I manage to loose weight I plummed up even higher…

June ‘25

Picture of the month — June ‘25

June felt like a very balanced month. 8 points across the board besides for BODY. I exercised a lot (Traufgang, 4 runs, reached FL Lvl 50) but also ate a lot, sticking at 103kg. I cried for the first time in a long long time in front of my parents. Parenthood is getting better and better. Jago accepts me more and more. Sleeping with me gets easier. Feel like the Jago Bonding effort comes to a close. Likewise my Feel-Good Marriage effort also coming to a close. We made a lot of progress on the house, spend a lot of family time and also kept the fun high with Jago play, cinema, movies, juggling. As another highlight we did a mid-year retreat in Italy. I also released another book update. On the downsides, just one book copy sold, my Substack engagements feel like wasted effort and I didn’t spend as much time in Flow as I would have liked.

July ‘25

Picture of the month — July ‘25

July ‘25 was a progressive month. Versatile yet productive. Interesting, yet intense. I exercised a lot, restricted kcal and managed to get at 2000 brutto. This lost me 1kg of weight but gained over 1% body fat according to my scale. What made it work is the no food after 7pm and movies in bed with my laptop. I went to WAD in Berlin with Mathias and I also went to a few other friends and family gatherings. More sex, better tasks at work. I published 3 essays and made progress on Part 5 of the book. I also went to the cinema; 3x in the same week. 2-3 times I slept badly for various exceptional reasons but I kept it in check overall.

August ‘25

Picture of the month — August ‘25

August was a month of JagoCare, CoreRen Tailfingen and accepting the unpredictability of life. I spent 8 full days and some shorter periods in Tailfingen and we moved a lot, the floor got made, the Kitchen delivered. We put in some floors and much more. All while living with my parents and bringing Jago to bed every day. A second time this year Chia went to Thailand since her mom got dangerously sick and was likely to die soon. It was hard on her, but also on me and my parents as Jago had to stay with her. She had to play mom for him..

September ‘25

Picture of the month — September ‘25

September was much like August, except Chia’s mom eventually passed away and Chia came back. The progress on the house is even better than in August since all the doors, electricity and bathrooms made progress. Of course I wan’t able to write much and I also had no time left for a trip and I even skipped the quarter-end retreat all in favor for progress on the house

October ‘25

Picture of the month — October ‘25

October was so busy a month I didn’t even manage to do a monthly review, let a lone a 2 day retreat. Most of my time was spent with work and then work on the house. Part through the month I started working from the new house as I had no internet connection anymore in the old one but already one in the new one. Also wanted to try the look and feel of an office job again for a while. However, workload at work was very low and I was able to work most days on CoreRen.

November ‘25

Picture of the month — November ‘25

November was a month of triumph. We finally, after 2 years moved into our new home. The only thing missing now are parts my brother want to make- woodwork and the baseboards which had a very big delivery delay. The final work and moving was hard but we feel very happy in our new home and its as if we also have a new family dynamic, as if the old home only was an interlude that dragged on for too long and kept us hostage in a place we didn’t want to be. Atop of that towards the end of the month I got approached to move to another team at work and I quickly accepted the offer. So now I am in a great new team with a great Scrum process and very nice people. Many things seem to fall into place. Only, as always, the health side is underrepresented in my life. I signed up for the new gym closeby but haven’t used it yet.

December ‘25

Picture of the month — December ‘25

December was a stressful month. We put a lot of emphasis on getting our house and habits in order. So many new rules, so many new things to learn and do. Chores are a lot more than ever before. Jago is more mobile here with the stairs and also is getting more grumpy… at work I had to switch to our internal golf app due to IBM budget reasons which was also meant more work than usual. I tried out the new gym only once, almost never weight myself and gained a kg. I ended up on the couch watching TV most days… the thing I wanted to avoid the most is already come to be. I really have to get back into reading more again.

Going forward…

Annual Theme Setting

As the 2026 theme, I chose A Time of Tending 🌱. I want to recover from heavy years with big programs. I want to spend this year valuing continuity over intensity and resilience over speed. I want to explore organic growth, letting things evolve in their own time and take their own shape. For this, I want to steward, sow, and foster growth, rather than directly control it, across the different areas of my life.

Annual Goal Setting

I will continue to work in a quarterly cadence and from my moving target board, which you find on my NOW page.