wanting to be better
Happy New Year everyone.
By the last quarter of 2025, I started privately referring to it as my ‘flop year’. It felt like I was failing in ways that weren’t even imaginable to me in past years.
I struggled a lot with anxiety and panic attacks, which made things difficult. Sometimes I couldn’t sleep, other times I couldn’t focus. A family member passed away. I was forced to give up an academic opportunity for reasons outside my control. Even though I felt like I was studying harder than before, my grades were dropping. I was hospitalised multiple times for health issues (which have now been resolved). My relationship with my mother became strained. I started to realise that some of my friends weren’t genuine. I didn’t know what I wanted from anything. I became tortured by small decisions and actions. I stopped reading and writing and running and, outside of university, I felt like I lacked an identity.
But perhaps most significantly, I fell into a cycle of refusing to challenge myself and put myself out there.
I'm hopeful for 2026, and determined to make things better.
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ideas, hopes, aims for 2026:
say no more often
get comfortable standing my ground
have a budget and manage my money
go to therapy
learn to regulate myself better
learn to care less. also, doing things for myself and not caring about opinions that don’t matter to me. move towards what matters to me rather than what matters to others.
be more sure of myself
get an office job or internship
time management as a personal practice
start running again for discipline, health and wellbeing
have a structured routine
stay focused, prioritise
keep my room clean and tidy
reduce consumption, declutter, reduce the number of possessions i own
become more agentic
make the most of my life and the opportunities i am given, but also learn how to force opportunities for myself
build a system of values
experience a lot of things, make mistakes and learn from them
speak to people more freely
be kinder to others and myself
reach out to my grandma more often
get along better with my mother