Dear me,

I wonder what you look like right now…not literally, but as a person. I wonder how much has changed in the past twelve months and if the things I am worrying about today even matter to you anymore.

Right now, I am at a point where I know I want more from myself. I am studying Software Engineering, and although I have learned quite a lot already, I still sometimes feel like I have so much more to figure out, especially in this field of Web Development.

Over the next year, I want to become genuinely good at what I do, not just someone who can pass a course or follow a tutorial. I want to be able to sit down with an idea and actually build something useful from it.

I hope you have improved your programming skills, especially with whatever field of software you ultimately decided to stay in. I hope you have built projects that you are actually proud to put your name on.

More importantly, I hope you stopped being afraid of not knowing something. There will always be something you do not know…the difference is just that you are now more confident in figuring it out.

I also hope you became more disciplined. This is probably one of the biggest things I want to change. Motivation is nice, but it comes and goes. I want you to be someone who can still do what needs to be done when you do not feel like doing it.

Whether it is studying, working on your career, training, or simply taking care of yourself, I hope you learned to show up consistently.

Speaking of training, I hope you are stronger and healthier too. I have spent a lot of time thinking about fitness and trying to improve physically, but I do not want it to become something that controls everything.

I want to be consistent, eat better, train hard and still enjoy life. Progress, but without making perfection the goal.

I hope you have also become better with money. I want to be more financially responsible and eventually independent. I do not expect to have everything figured out in one year, but I want to look back and know that I started taking my future seriously.

There are also things I refuse to compromise on.

I do not want success to turn me into someone I do not recognize. I want to remain close to the people who genuinely care about me. I want to be honest with myself, keep my values, and not compare my life too much with everyone else’s.

So, dear me, if you are reading this twelve months from now, I hope you are proud.

Maybe everything did not go according to plan. That is okay. I just hope you kept moving.

I hope you took chances. I hope you failed at a few things and learned from them. I hope you became more confident, more capable and a little more mature.

And if you are still figuring things out, that is fine too.

Just do not stop!