My 2025

This year could have been anything, but it ended up being nothing

Hi everyone! Been a while.

If you have been a subscriber for a while, you might know that this yearly review used to be a ritual that I broke last year. This year, I want to start it again.

2025 for me was unexpected and boring at the same time. Things happened, but most of them did not change my life, except one.

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What happened this year

1. Attended Coldplay’s concert in Mumbai. Definitely a top tier experience that I am super glad I had. Especially thanks to my girlfriend who literally forced me to attend because I am completely averse to big crowds.

2. Completed 7 years of the most beautiful relationship with the LOML. 🧿

3. I went to two trips with friends this year - Mussoorie and Lonavala. Over time, my definition of trip and what it means to travel has changed. First of all, I hate travelling. But I like being in new places. Now, my favourite thing to do is go to a new place and chill there. Not visit many places, but just chill. And that’s what I did.

4. I turned 27 this year. I hate getting old. I know 27 is not old, but I am older than 23 - my favourite age. I can see visible differences in my life, my body and my mindset.

5. My health deteriorated a lot in the last 2 years and I finally saw the impact in August 2025. As a result, I had to make drastic changes to my life in terms of health.

6. I stopped drinking Coke. It’s not a life update, this is like giving away one of the things that gave my life meaning. I am dramatic, yes. But if you know me and my love for Coke, you will know how big of a deal this is.

7. I am lactose intolerant. Apparently, I have been doing things wrong my whole life. I should not be drinking milk, tea, coffee - anything. So, I have stopped having all of these and whatever happiness was there in my life is not there anymore.

8. I lost 7 kg between August and November. I believe I was not overweight, but my body weight was not helping other health metrics of my body. So, I shed some weight - went from 76 kg to 69 kg and everything became better. My test reports improved, I felt better, I look better (I think so).

9. Became consistent in the gym - made it a lifestyle instead of a choice/ decision. I have been lifting weights for 5 months now. Consistently. And now I don’t want to stop it. I legit miss gym. You can follow me on Hevy if you use it too: https://hevy.com/user/ishantjuyal

10. Got too deep into this “vibe coding” thing. Ended up building too many side projects. I like that I don’t have to be restricted by a lack of coding skills now. My favourite project of mine is Appvia which is currently being used by around 6 teams.

11. I have shifted back to Gurgaon for now. Not sure if this is sustainable though because I already miss BLR too much. Let’s see.

12. Also, something happened in December that changed my life - but I think I will not talk about it right now. You will know when the time is right.

13. I found out that I am good at my job. I have seen progress in the product I work on at my job. I have seen myself getting better at being a PM and I have gotten a lot of appreciation too from people that makes me believe that I might not be as terrible as my impostor syndrome makes me think I am.

Things I thought I would do but didn’t

1. Attend Dance Workshops: In 2024, I went to one workshop and felt so good that I thought this will become a more frequent thing. But I was not able to go even to one of the workshops this year.

2. Read 20 books: I have realised and accepted that number of books is such a bad metric to optimise for after failing at it multiple times that now I have decided to look at it from a very different perspective. Let’s see how 2026 goes.

3. Speak Garhwali fluently: My family is from Uttarakhand and our mother tongue is Garhwali. A few people in our family speak but everyone understands. This year I started speaking it a bit because I wanted to be closer to my culture - but I ended up spending most of my time in BLR so it could not happen.

4. Buy a house: Well, no reason for this. Just the stars did not align at the right time and then priorities changed.

Learnings from this year

1. I like having fun. I don’t like working that much. So, the best way for me to do things is to make my work fun. If I don’t enjoy anything, I most probably would not choose it. I think this is not a learning, but more of a realisation and a feedback on which I have to work on.

2. The world is changing too fast and I think I am not able to keep up. But I can’t give up, so I can only try.

3. Setting up goals at the starting of the year is good, but it’s important to follow up and prioritise them time to time. Otherwise it’s just a useless activity that has no meaning.

4. With age, you do become a family person. As you grow up, you lose the liberty to prioritise your life outside and not care about the dynamics and drama of the family.

5. A lot of my months were uneventful this year. Till last year, I always had something to look forward to, but now I have started accepting these gaps between things. Sometimes days, weeks and even months are supposed to be for doing nothing.

6. Buy that domain. Launch that project. Go to that concert. Rent that movie on Youtube. Don’t care about some 1000 rupees that you will save. Buy that Cursor subscription, that new course about AI, do anything that you want because these things don’t go to waste.

7. Barney Stinson was right - "Suit Up!"

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Conclusion

I hope you all had a happy and eventful year that you are proud of. And even if you didn’t, you will have a better one in 2026.

I just want to wish you all a very happy and beautiful New Year. May this year be THE YEAR you have always waited for. May this year be the year that changes your life and brings you closer to love, life and happiness. 🤗

️Peace out and I will see you all next year✌🏻