The Birthday Memo
Every year on my birthday, I record a video memo. Usually 20-30 minutes long. I grab my phone and just talk — walking around outside or pacing my apartment, whatever feels right that day. No cuts. No re-records when I stumble over words. No effort to hold the camera properly. One long, unedited take.
When I finish, I watch last year's memo. Once. Then I never watch it again. Nobody else will ever see any of these.
I started doing this at 24. In retrospect, way too late.
It started out of boredom, but looking back, this is probably the most important habit I've picked up.
The obvious thing is progress. You see yourself making a ridiculous amount of it, especially in the areas where you're convinced you're falling behind. But there's a less obvious thing: you watch yourself change in these incredibly nuanced ways. My voice sounds more deliberate now than it did a few years ago. My posture is better. I'm more genuinely fired up about what I'm working on.
Some years I crush sport goals — mountaineering, climbing, trail running. Other years are all about career: growing skills, expanding circles. There's no pattern to it. And the biggest gains are usually the ones I never saw coming.
There's something quietly powerful about accumulating proof that pushing forward works. Not "consistency" — that word gets thrown around like it's a magic formula. Not "intention" either. Those are just comfortable words people use when they don't want to take actual risks.
What actually moves things is calculated risk-taking. Having the agency to go for things even when the outcome isn't guaranteed. These recordings are my proof that if you push hard enough, things work out. And that confidence compounds every year.