For the past twenty years, Young has used his birthday as an opportunity to pause, reflect, and share a candid assessment of his life, career trajectories, and future plans with his readership. This year’s reflection arrives exactly two years after the completion of his comprehensive Foundations project—a major self-improvement initiative designed to overhaul his daily habits, health routines, and personal organization.
Reviewing the lasting impact of that initiative, Young expressed satisfaction that the core habits built during the project have largely endured. Daily exercise remains a staple of his routine. While a full marathon wasn’t on the cards this year, Young challenged himself physically by completing a grueling local mountain race that climbs 1,400 meters of elevation over 16 kilometers, taking participants straight from sea level to a mountain peak. Beyond physical endurance, he reports maintaining a steady, consistent approach to his daily nutrition, sleep schedules, reading habits, and social connections.
However, progress has not been uniform across all fronts. Young acknowledged some backsliding in his personal organization—an area he admits started from a particularly low baseline. True to his pragmatic approach to self-improvement, he noted that given the historical difficulty he has had with administrative organization, it will likely take a few more deliberate attempts before those specific habits truly stick for good.
The standout professional milestone of the past year was the development and launch of the inaugural session of his new course, Everyday Energy. Researching and building the curriculum proved to be an intellectually stimulating endeavor for the author. Because he has long harbored a deep fascination with the intricate connections linking human motivation, productivity, physical health, and overall well-being, crafting more than seventy-five comprehensive lessons gave him a rewarding excuse to dive deep into complex topics that might have otherwise escaped his research radar.
My Plans for Next Year
Looking toward the horizon, Young’s primary learning and production project for the upcoming year represents a significant pivot in medium: he intends to dedicate serious time and energy to creating more and better videos for his YouTube channel.
While Young has maintained a presence on the platform for over a decade, his output has historically been sporadic. He has always held a deep appreciation for high-quality educational video content, admiring channels like 3Blue1Brown, Veritasium, and World War Two, which manage the difficult balancing act of being simultaneously entertaining and intellectually rigorous.
Despite this admiration, his own commitment to video production has previously remained half-hearted. Video production is inherently far more time-consuming than traditional writing, and Young admitted he never fully committed himself to climbing the steep skill curve required to produce content that truly satisfied his own standards. Consequently, despite having a channel for ten years, he has remained inconsistent as a video creator.
However, the broader transformation of the digital media ecosystem—marked by an undeniable overall shift toward video content—has convinced him that the time is right to properly master the medium. He believes that investing the necessary effort to learn professional video production and create the specific types of educational videos he wants to see in the world is fully justified at this stage in his career.
For readers who prefer traditional written essays over video essays, Young offered reassurance that his core writing will not be coming to an end. He plans to continue publishing his written work while simultaneously sharing his newly produced video content through his established newsletter.
Personal Goals
Outside of professional projects, Young’s personal focus for the coming year centers on reinforcing and deepening the fundamental habits established during his initial lifestyle overhaul.
With his health and physical fitness running smoothly, he is eyeing new athletic challenges. Though he doubts he will have the necessary time to properly train for a full marathon in the coming months, he is considering shifting his focus toward a half-distance endurance race or potentially trying his hand at a triathlon.
In the realm of reading, Young aims to cast a wider net as time permits. Much of his reading is typically dictated by the rigorous research demands of his current writing projects, which frequently narrows his book choices. He hopes to use the coming year to explore books that are not intended to feed directly into his essays or courses. Naturally, given his new professional focus on video creation, his reading list has already expanded to include a selection of books dedicated to the art and mechanics of filmmaking.
Another area that received candid evaluation is personal outreach. During his initial Foundations project, Young realized that maintaining social connections had occasionally taken a backseat to productivity goals. A distinct priority for the next year is carving out intentional time for friends and family, even on occasions when socializing might temporarily feel less productive than working. He noted that the recent, rapid emergence of artificial intelligence has served as a poignant reminder of the irreplaceable value that flows through genuine human relationships, emphasizing that these bonds must never be neglected in pursuit of efficiency.
Ultimately, Young turned his attention to the community that has supported his work for two decades. He reflected on the deep and enduring relationships he has built with his readers, noting that this ongoing connection is what makes his career as an independent writer possible. Having written publicly for more than twenty years, he expressed profound gratitude for the unique opportunity to continuously learn, explore ideas, and share his findings with an engaged audience.
With another year of personal reflection complete, Young thanked his readers for sticking with him through two decades of writing, growth, and evolution, setting the stage for his next chapter in both writing and digital video production.
