At the end of 2025, I did what I always do in December: drew a line, looked back, and took stock.
Professional growth, check. Relationships, check. Expectations reset, check. The usual stuff.
But then I started thinking about skills. Not work skills. The other kind.
And I froze.
I couldn't remember the last thing I'd learned that had absolutely nothing to do with my job. Drawing during Covid lockdowns? Too long ago.
Making pizza? Maybe.
Landing a Muay Thai kick to someone's face during a class in Thailand? Possibly.
That's when an idea hit me.
What if I picked 12 topics, one per month, and committed to actually learning something new each time? By December, I'd have 12 skills, or at least 12 things I know more about than I did in January.
I started a list. And then the list became a dream sequence: skateboarding, Spanish, negotiation, cocktail-making, all the things I'd always said "one day" about.
Endless.
I narrowed it down to 11. January was already gone, too many work trips in the first 30 days to add anything on top.
I asked my ex-friend ChatGPT (ex, because I've joined the #quitGPT crowd) to help me gamify the whole thing. For each topic, a list of tasks and micro-goals, something concrete enough to say at the end of the month whether I'd actually done it or not.
I built the whole thing on Notion. Of course.
Here's where I'm at:
→ January: prep mode. Easy.
→ February: Spanish. Weekly lessons, conversations with strangers, new vocabulary. Satisfied, but I need to keep going.
→ March: Negotiation. Just bought Never Split the Difference. Keep you posted.
I don't know if I'll make it through all 12 without skipping something. But so far, it's working, and more importantly, it's fun.
Which is kind of the whole point.