Looking Ahead to 2025

On Monday I wrote my 2024 look-back post. As I said then, the theme of last year was settling into our new home. As we move on to 2025 I’m ready to look past settling to start to focus on areas of my life that I’ve neglected or fallen behind on over the last few years.

My Health

First is my ever-present goal of getting healthier. This is an ongoing process where I had some wins and some losses last year. I’ve mostly quit drinking again, which is good. In 2025 and beyond I look forward to staying completely dry.

Exercise in 2024 was a mixed bag as I look for ways to keep fit that work with my schedule and the weather. In Florida we could walk outside all year, even if summers were miserable. Here that’s harder. Before joining SuperFile in July I was getting the habit back but my work schedule has made daily walking almost impossible. This last month I’ve started branching out into other types of exercise and I’m looking forward to keeping that momentum going this year. That means more weights and more cardio on machines, rather than just walking outside.

As for my diet, if I want to improve here I need to focus on my self-control, not the meals or snacks themselves. The main reason I don’t want to drink beer anymore is that I never have just 1, I’ll have 5 or 6. The same goes with junk food. At work, where soda and candy is readily available, I’ll go through 5 cans of soda in a day some days and just as much candy. Changing that is not going to be easy but it will be my goal for the year.

My Faith

Believe it or not, if you know me, faith is a pretty strong draw for me yet it is something I haven’t been able to participate in for years.

In 2025 I hope to change that and get involved. We’ve found some options near us that are inclusive and progressive and I look forward to once again getting involved in 2025.

My Work

2024 reminded me that my strengths focus around building and leading teams and projects. In 2025 I hope to embrace that and grow my leadership skills. Whereas, in the past, writing better code was always my goal now leading more effectively will be where I spend more of my learning time.

To be honest, I don’t know what this looks like yet. I’ve just come around to the idea that writing code doesn’t have to be my ultimate career goal. With a little luck, though, 2025 will prove successful at work as I help guide my team towards our goals in the most effective manner I can.

Side projects and hobbies

Finally, there are my side projects and hobbies. In 2025 there are a few things I want to work that all revolve around a central theme: I need to learn to focus again.

At home it is way to easy for me to lose entire evenings and weekends doom-scrolling, a habit that really accelerated with COVID. 2025 is the year where I vow to learn how to focus again with a few goals in mind:

1. Find a side project I can enjoy over the long-term
2. Read more (I read less in 2024 than in the previous 3 years)
3. Write more

I’m not setting goals of x books to read or blog posts to write. I’m simply going to focus on, while, trying to focus and do my best to do more on all these areas.

Here’s to successful 2025.