My goals for 2026

3 Thoughts

I.

The greatest sense of satisfaction against a hater is that they will continue to live their life and you will live yours. Living a good life is a greater form of revenge than trying to get back at them.

II.

You can avoid a lot of poor decisions by asking yourself: “Will this make life easier or harder for my future self?”

III.

I want to be rich. I’ll admit it. But not so I can buy a Rolex or Lamborghini.

I want to be rich so I can control my time and go to the gym at 3pm on a Tuesday.

So I can sit at a cafe and order breakfast without looking at the prices.

So my wife and parents don’t have to worry about money or getting a job.

So I can travel freely and show my kids the world.

So I can take my friends out to dinner and say “don’t worry, it’s on me”.

That’s my idea of a rich life. Money isn’t the goal. It’s a tool to live a deeper, more fulfilling, adventurous life.

2 Quotes

I.

“If you need music on the beach, you’ve forgotten how to listen.”

— Gaurav Sharma

II.

3x founder Austin Walker on maximizing serendipity:

“when you’re young, you should minimize the degrees of friction between you and serendipity.

don’t live 2 hours outside the city to save a few bucks on rent.

you’ll miss the last-minute dinners and random meetups that could change your life, and pay back everything you ‘saved’.”

1 Game-Changing Idea

The weeks after the holiday season is always weird for me.

I move slower. I take more time to rest. I reflect a lot.

And the past few weeks have been no different.

2025 was the best year of my life.

• I scaled my ghostwriting agency

• Wrote my first book

• Dropped out of college

• Moved across the country

• Ran a marathon

• And had a ton of internal revelations living on my own for the past year.

I had a friend ask me what my 2026 goals were.

I expected myself to say more followers, more money, more recognition, and feeling “happy”.

But my answer surprised me…

I said, “peace”.

And I've been thinking about why that caught me off guard.

I think when you're young, you want external things (attention, money, recognition, validation). You think if you just get enough of those, you'll feel complete. So you chase them. You put your head down, grind, and tell yourself you'll figure out the rest later.

But the older I get (and I know, I'm only 20, but still), the more I realize those external things were never really the point. The things I actually wanted were internal all along (close relationships, freedom, confidence, and feeling at peace).

Sure, I still have external goals.

• I want to write my second book.

• Record more videos for Instagram.

• Buy my first real estate property.

• Bench 225 lbs.

But for the most part, I just want to continue compounding the momentum I built in 2025. I want more good days.

And maybe that sounds like my ambition is quieting down.

But I actually think it's the opposite.

I saw this tweet the other day from James Clear. Dan Go asked him what a normal day of work looks like, and he said:

That's it. Nothing flashy. No private jets or crazy launches or viral moments.

And I don't know. Something about that hit me. It's so simple. Most people would look at that and think it's boring. But I think that's the whole point.

A good life is just a string of good days. And that? That's a really good day.

So I'll leave you with a question I've been sitting with:

If you couldn't tell anyone what you were working on, would you still work on it?

I'm still figuring that out myself.

Until next week,
Jay “peace in the pursuit of progress” Yang

Ps. Writers be like

Kind words for ‘You Can Just Do Things’

Much love, Luke! ✊🏻

You can grab your copy here.

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