​New years resolutions 2026

02. Jan, 2026

I love doing new years resolutions and following up on the previous year to see if I made the progress I hoped for


One hurtful feeling though is to see the same item appear year after year with little progress: Stress.

Since 2024 I have been very mindful about it and set clear goals. Also to improve my overall health which has been rough.

But while I have taken the task seriously and gone through 3 health and stress professionals, got an ADHD diagnosis and treatment, including medicine that so far only made it worse, and countless other adjustments and experiments, the output is still not where I had hoped. To be fair I feel much better than in 2023, I just didn't expect this to have taken so long. Maybe 2026 is the year I finally get balanced 🤞

That said, 2025 was in many ways a succesful year. I think I grew personally. And maybe the most important thing: My health got significantly better. Bad general health was about to destroy so many things for me, so I am eternally grateful it seems to have gotten better. No idea what exactly made the change, but I am sure it's connected to reduced stress.

Last years goals

  • Fully get my stress and health in order
    • As described above better but not fully there after 4 years of trying
  • Fluent in Dutch (but not perfect)
    • Would say I am there, but no where near native yet
  • More adventures with Clé

    • I didn't do as many adventures with Cle as I wanted. Our relationship suffered end of year too. So need to find a way in 2026!

  • Learn how to enjoy parenthood

    • I did finally learn it! One epiphany after the other. Next goal is to get excited about activities together.

  • Find more calm in my every day life

    • I do feel more calm. So I guess mission completed.

  • Become a decent engineer
    • I did. Built a lot of software. And with relative low error rates in production when factoring in complexity. The WordPress plugin has a wild amount of moving parts 😵
  • Grow Morningscore +33%
    • Grew Morningscore 30%. Given all the challenges I am satisfied.

2026 resolutions

  • Work fewer evenings
  • Get more emotional control
  • Get excited about the activities I do with kids. I enjoy the overall experience of parenthood, but I need to fix my excitement in the moment
  • Get Morningscore to EBITDA positive
  • Play more video games to get more inspiration
  • Build my first hobby hardware project (raspberry pie kinda stuff)

I am very excited about 2026 - I have the feeling it's going to be a cool year 😎

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Karsten Madsen

This is my public diary. My passion is to build cool novel things. And to fight for fairness and optimism.

Go to my "about page" if you want to read a longer story :)

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