To an amazing new year. And to a cleanup of things that don't work.
Coming out of 2025, the latter half of it, was a bit of a drag. Going through it mostly felt good, great, even amazing, at times. But in hindsight, yes, it was hard.
From hammering away at a job that every day seemed to taste the same, to mindless doomscrolling in the evening after. From pursuing that side-hustle, to going to the gym, maintaining life and balancing it all. Sometimes, instead of thriving, it was surviving.
But the blessings of the christmas vacation brought with it a reset. Meeting family and friends, while taking time to relax and meditate. Leaving home, left me with new ideas.
In order to thrive, the low joys of doomscrolling, youtube, blarring that new song on spotify, or chasing that never-ending todo list, can only meet the baseline, of what could be called life.
It is time to level up.
Making Space
To leave room for awesomeness, some old stuff has to go. For every shit habit or idea that goes out the window, I get to take the chance on something new.
I am throwing out my kanban board. Instead of constantly chasing whatever is in the “todo” or “doing” column, its time to remove the clutter. Critical items go into my digital calendar. The black magnetic board will go down, and picture of a flower is taking its place. Instead of chasing that made up “todo” list, its doing things that matter today.
In 2026 I am done with doomscrolling. Using app usage limits on my phone, i am putting it away. Mindless scrolling seeps to give some sort of solice, but it is unhealthy. What is needed is more than just a mindnumbing bandaid. What is needed are healthy habits.
Another thing I am throwing out is working every day. It's time to restore the “mindful sunday”, where I decide to not work on anything. I'm done replacing the corporate hamster wheel with my own hamster wheel. Instead of doing more, it's time to reflect more on the things that already happened. It's time to start journaling again.
2026 will be generally the year I'll stop overfocussing on doing. It's time to finally listen to my own quote:
A certain quality of going outward, requires a certain quality of going inward.
Instead of doing, doing, doing, it's time to start sensing. It's time to give space to those of my talents, which have nothing to do with doing.
Connected to that, it's also time to stop chasing every little create idea that comes into my head. While it gives that dopamine rush, seeing things through, making every random thing come to live, seems totally over-taxing. It's time go back to basics, and stay there.
And finally, I am done trying to read all those books. I have some quite heavy books on my shelf, and I was rushing to finally finish them. But looking back, I see how little I actually remember. Instead of rushing through many, it's time to read one book in a deep and reflected way.
Healthy things
To continuously ride a high level of ease, joy and productivity, a clear seperation is needed between things that make me feel healthy, and things that just help me survive. Between things that recharge, and things that just snooze.
Healthy, recharging habits:
- Daily Yoga
- Gym
- Daily Meditation
- Daily Singing
- Joking
- Interrupting the flow of doing with dedicated period of non-doing (mornings, evenings, sundays)
- Regular, relaxing vacations
- The Work, by Byron Katie, to resolve conflicts of everyday
Unhealthy, draining habits:
- Consuming social media
- Consuming unreflected thought
- Aggressive music as background noise
- Non-meditative music as background noise
- Youtube content
A big thing I am trying this year is going back into journaling. The leather DinA4 binder I bought for 30€ seemed at first way overpriced, but it is immediately worth it. While I don't immediately feel the benefits of journaling, it is a good advice from a friend, and I see it does help me with my efforts.
Rounding up
Going into this year, it's not going to be important to achive that thing X. What I see as the challenge is to create this balance, on a level that is not low and draining, but which allows me to thrive.
It is going to take discipline, investing into the healthy habits I already identified. For the price of this well-directed effort, I trust to live a year, which is much closer to what life can already be.
I wish everybody a happy start into 2026. May great ideas bless you, when you thought, all hope was lost.