2025: A Year of Humility, AI, and Reclaiming the Self
On morning rituals, the power of 'reps,' and reclaiming attention in an age of AI-driven chaos.
2025 was challenging. Building AI products with intense timelines and an ever-changing landscape was growth-inducing yet overwhelming, and filled with self-doubt and burnout. Coupled with health issues in the family, political instability, and climate anxiety, it challenged my resilience, my ability to stay calm, feel grounded, and find joy throughout the year.
2024, in contrast, was the year of feeling empowered where I framed well-rounded goals and felt accomplished by achieving those. 2025 was humbling, reminding me of the unpredictability of work and life. Nevertheless, the year brought incredible learning and growth.
This post is a reflection on what worked, what fell short, and where I need to double down to enable a sustainable and fulfilling career. Through these lessons, I hope to help my future self and others who are on a similar journey.
TL;DR — My 2025 “Cheat Sheet” for a Sustainable Career:
Morning & Night: Rituals reset miseries; sleep must be earned daily.
Mindset: Reality is a projection; action is the antidote to anxiety.
Growth: Prioritize deliberate reps and trusting yourself over a “perfect” process.
Presence: Reclaim your attention span to enable deep work and “just being.”
1. A strong morning ritual resets most miseries
Mornings don’t just set the tone of the day; they simplify problems and are the biggest leverage for long-term success. Sticking to healthy morning rituals gave the biggest payoff. On the best days, my morning starts by 6, followed by an app-led workout, meditation, and journaling the day’s focus. My worst days start by checking emails or waking up tired after poor sleep.
The takeaway: Even if your ritual is just 5 minutes of quiet before opening Slack, protect that window at all costs. A key learning is to minimize reactive days by knowing what’s at stake.
2. A sound sleep must be earned every day
Sleep is critical for productivity, but a tech job is inherently anti-sleep: excessive screen time, decision fatigue, and frequent context switching all contribute to an overstimulated brain. The sparse sunshine during Pacific NW winters further impairs the circadian rhythm.
Good sleep is hard-earned. Deliberate outdoor exposure, an AM workout, a caffeine fast after noon, and closing work before 6 PM usually conduce to good sleep. My learning is to rationalize FUDs (fear, uncertainty, and doubts) before going to bed. A Netflix episode seemed like an easy escape, but those worries almost always woke me up in the middle of the night.
3. Reality is a perception
This year, I experienced firsthand that the world is a projection of the movie our mind is playing. I can influence what’s playing to some extent, but I can’t switch the channel entirely. A restful sleep or a strong morning ritual will usually start a good movie, but it is not guaranteed to last—a small event like a rude email can trigger a downward spiral.
What helped most effectively was to persevere witnessing of these thoughts to detach from the situation; writing them down when it got too chaotic to create clarity or reframing the problem to explore a solution. It is a muscle I need to grow every day with every opportunity life offers me.
4. Action is an antidote to anxiety
The world is chaotic and careers are unstable. But the best way I found to overcome negative emotions is to do something. When I hit a setback, I journaled, wrote next steps, and acted on the obvious task at hand. To ease my AI anxiety, I built AI products and shared my learning instead of just consuming information. Taking action forces the mind from “why me” to “how may I” and channels negative energy into progress.
5. Trust myself more
The problem with people with high agency is they blame themselves for everything that goes wrong, which instinctively leads to self-doubt. In retrospection, I often found specific failures were attributed to bigger circumstances rather than an isolated mistake. Lesson: deliberately reinforce trust in yourself by taking a step back and rationalizing the situation more objectively.
6. Strength-training is a cure-all
Inspired by my teenage son, I joined a gym. It was a game changer. Any time work things got tough, I hit the gym. It always calmed my aching heart and solved problems I couldn’t have solved in front of my computer. A 3x/week gym habit was the best new habit I built in 2025 that I plan to stick to in 2026.
7. Reps over perfection
My breakthroughs came through reps. Spending 30 minutes daily vibe coding worked better than waiting for a dedicated week for learning. Drafting a strategy then revisiting it over subsequent days was more effective than trying to perfect it in one sitting. Recurring conversations with colleagues to drive clarity on a gnarly problem drove better results than obsessing over a perfect plan. Learning: breakthroughs came through deliberate practice rather than insisting on a perfect process. This insight is vital for complex AI projects where the roadmap is often ambiguous.
8. Make time for things that I enjoy
2025 was the least enjoyable year for me. Reflecting back, I didn’t allow myself to do things that energized me—I didn’t even write for 6 months! Learning from this, I want to double down on singing, lunch with colleagues, and planning fun weekends. I need to be deliberate about these activities, setting time aside for recharge as a priority to increase my long-term productivity.
9. Reclaim my attention span
I lost my ability to stay in a conversation for more than a few seconds. I noticed that led to higher context switching and brain fog. My attention span is the biggest asset I want to preserve, as it is the foundation for high-quality product strategy and deep work. I will start small: not checking my phone at the checkout counter and using full-screen mode during meetings to create pockets of sustained attention.
10. Practice just being
Last year went by too quickly. If I am not deliberate, this year shall pass like a fleeting memory too. I will deliberately create space with no end goal in mind, like “no-agenda Fridays” where intuition drives the day. I will try weekend projects where I let a spontaneous app-building idea drop me into a flow state. On evenings, I will truly listen to my younger one’s school experiences. I am learning that life’s real agenda is to immerse in the experience and witness what unfolds every moment.
What about you? What was the one habit that kept you afloat in 2025, and what are you choosing to leave behind in 2026?