Every year, I take time to reflect on the past. I use the art of journaling. It’s just me, a keyboard, and an empty document. I give myself one hour and just let my thoughts flow.
I look back on what happened, what I achieved, what I learned, and most importantly, what my intention is for next year. Note the word intention instead of goal. Goals are binary; they either pass or fail. Intentions are a direction, a way of being.
As I look back at 2025: a year that brought me my second son and new perspectives on my career. I want to share the lessons I (re-)learned.
1. Speak out your inner thoughts, and things will start to move
I used to keep my thoughts mostly to myself. But this year, I hit a wall. It wasn’t just the project challenges; it was a deeper realisation about how I was working.
The moment of clarity came from the most mundane place possible: a standard “work happiness” form. It was just a PDF with checkboxes, but it acted like a mirror. Staring at those sterile questions, I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. I realised that while I still loved writing code, I felt incomplete functioning purely as a backend developer. I missed the human element. I missed coaching.
I decided to speak out. I voiced my desire to combine my technical work with a role focused on Team Coaching and high-performance dynamics.
Speaking up didn’t magically fix everything, but it changed my filter. I stopped waiting for the perfect role to be handed to me and started actively looking for places where I could build it. If you don’t advocate for the path you want to walk, no one else will map it out for you.
2. Stepping into the light
This year, I committed to becoming a “thought leader” and joined a speaker program. Writing that down still feels uncomfortable. My inner critic is sometimes loud. It asks: Who are you to teach this?
But the victory of 2025 wasn’t the title or the program. The victory was deciding to stop hiding.
For years, I hid behind the role of developer. It was safe there. If the code worked, I was good. But I realised that staying safe meant staying small, not in career, but in impact. I want to inspire people, and you can’t inspire anyone from the shadows.
Stepping into the light is terrifying. It requires overcoming the deep fear of being seen and judged. My lesson this year wasn’t about becoming an expert; it was about having the courage to show up as a beginner and say: “I have something to share.”
3. Soft skills aren’t “soft”: they are the bedrock
Whether I was deep in engineering work, collaborating with teams, or giving talks, one theme kept returning: Technical brilliance cannot save a disconnected team.
We often dismiss communication, trust, and safety as “soft skills,” implying they are optional: the garnish on the plate. But this year reinforced my idea that they are the plate itself.
Great teams aren’t built on code alone; they’re built on humans who feel heard. When I stopped trying to “optimise” the team and started just listening to the people, the work actually got easier. You can’t refactor a team that doesn’t trust each other. Connection isn’t a “productivity hack”; it’s the infrastructure that holds everything else up.
4. Confidence is the permission to be imperfect
This year, I gave talks on everything from “Automate everything with n8n” to workshops on Zen and mindfulness. Looking back, the lesson wasn’t about mastering the stage; it was about making peace with the fear.
I used to think confidence meant having zero nerves. I felt I had to be “ready” before I could start. I learned that “ready” is a myth.
The victory wasn’t delivering a perfect speech. The victory was standing on stage, feeling the sweat, hearing the shaky voice, and doing it anyway. In Zen, we practice sitting with discomfort, not fighting it. Public speaking is the same. Confidence isn’t the absence of fear; it is the permission to suck, and the courage to keep going until you don’t.
5. The dangerous side of AI
I am hyped about everything Gen AI. But as I wrote in one of my earlier blogs, there is a hidden danger in it. It wasn’t just that I was offloading my thoughts; I was offloading my struggle.
Earlier this year, I fell into the exact trap I warned others about. I found myself chatting with my AI co-creator for hours. Why? Because it was the path of least resistance for everything (And it felt kinda fun).
First, it replaced the struggle of thinking. It is easier to let the AI generate ideas than to stare at a blank page and wrestle with your own creativity. Second, it replaced the risk of connection. It is safer to debate with a chatbot that never judges you than to reach out to a colleague who might reject your idea.
I was outsourcing my friction. I was letting my critical thinking and my social muscles weaken. To break that cycle, I had to change how I used it. I stopped treating it like a “co-creator” (who does the thinking for me) and started treating it like a task-focused tool. Now, I write the core concepts myself. I force myself to do the hard thinking first and to consult my colleagues. I still use AI as a co-creator, but I want to experience the friction first-hand.
6. Well-being requires Adaptive Planning
I used to believe my well-being required a rigid plan. Meditate at 7:00. Cycle on Sunday.
Then my second son was born in October. With a toddler and a newborn, rigid plans aren’t just difficult; they are impossible.
At first, I fought it. I tried to force the schedule, and I failed. Then I realised: this isn’t a scheduling problem; it’s a surrender problem.
I learned a new lesson: Adaptive Planning. Which is just a fancy way of saying I am improvising jazz while the building is on fire.
But it works. It reminds me of the Zen proverb: The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists. This isn’t just a pretty quote; it became a survival mechanic. I still have the intention to cycle or meditate, but I surrender the specifics. If the baby sleeps at 10:00 instead of 7:00, that becomes my meditation slot.
Does it work perfectly? No. It fails about half the time. Currently, I manage to meditate maybe three times a week and cycle once a week. But under a rigid plan, that number was zero because I would quit the moment I missed a slot. Adaptive planning means accepting the 50% failure rate so I can enjoy the 50% success rate.
My Intention for 2026
My intention for next year is to share more about how we get our humanity back into software development.
We need to bridge the gap between high-performance code and high-performance humans. I will be doing this not only through blogs, but I am also looking forward to speaking at conference(s) this year!
This is my first lesson in action: Speak your intention to the world… so it can start manifesting.
Not by magic, but by accountability. Once you say it out loud, you can’t hide from it anymore.
So I’m stepping forward, imperfect and learning, and I’d love to hear from you, too.
What’s the one lesson from 2025 that shifted your path?
Drop it in the comments below. Let’s learn from each other.
