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The Mirror of Erised

JK Rowling’s genius to me is less about story arcs, lore, or even her characters.

It’s that in the Harry Potter saga she captured so many essential elements of human longing, belief, and experience. Chief among these is the idea that we are meant for something more. 

Take, for example, the Sorting Hat. At the beginning of their first year at Hogwart’s, students are assigned permanently to one of the four houses by… a hat. Parents, siblings, and the student themself are filled with anticipation (and anxiety) about what the Sorting Hat will decide. 

What is revealed to the reader and eventually Harry is that the Sorting Hat does not choose randomly. Nor does it take into account what the student is today. Rather, the hat looks at the student’s preference and, notably, where that student will grow the best.

The Mirror of Erised is another of Rowling’s clever creations. This mirror shows a person their deepest, innermost desires. The depiction is so vivid, that they risk never leaving the mirror—and dying in front of it. 

This idea is powerful for two reasons:

1. Fantasization impedes progress. 

2. Sometimes we can’t see clearly what we truly want. 

It takes… reflection. 🫣

Two Ways of Reflecting On 2025—and What You Want

You can look at your year in two ways: 

1️⃣ Execution-based

This is the usual way that ambitious operators look at their year. It asks, “How much did I follow through on the goals that I set out in the beginning?” 

When I was a Product leader in tech, I would often say, “That’s just engineering.”

I didn’t mean it to offend engineers. Rather, it asking my team and our engineering partners to focus on having killer hypotheses about more strategic questions. Product people and engineering managers should examine this (albeit to different degrees). But the most important thing was usually not our technical architecture but rather things like prioritization, sequencing, and design.  

The usual approach to personal reviews looks at how the engineering was implemented—not whether the important things were done given greater perspective. 

Execution-based reviews are necessary—but not sufficient alone. 

2️⃣ Journey-based

The prompt for this approach: “What options did I create that are likely to build a life well lived?” 

I suggest that we need more journey-based retrospectives as a complement to #1. Here’s why: 

(i) Although a year is a long time, some of life’s initiatives take much longer. For example: 

• Business: Many businesses take years to turn a profit. 

• Fitness: Building strong health habits and transforming your body is a multiyear project. 

• Friends: It takes 200 hours for two people to become close friends according to Jeffrey Hall’s research. Post-college professionals who don’t work together are unlikely to spend even a quarter of that together in a year. 

• Dating: It takes a long time to become the person you’d want to marry*—let alone meet enough people to both find and (importantly) know that you’ve found one of those people. (*Charlie Munger’s advice)

(ii) Not everything can be fully planned. Sometimes it’s not quite clear how to get to our long-term goal. Doing something creative might require a lot of exploration, something founders and artists tend to excel at. It’s hard to have meaningful milestones when you’re in that ambiguous zone that some call “the void.” 

(iii) Nor should everything be tracked. For one thing, this takes the fun out of life and adds administrative tasks (and perhaps stress)  to an already full plate. More importantly, some people will lose focus from their top 1 or 2 priorities simply by having measures for a wide range of areas. They physically won’t be able to resist looking at the data. 

Use This to Feed-Forward 2026

When you frame the past year in the context of a life well lived, you avoid the fallacy of just adding KPI targets to last year’s goals. 

You realize that some detestable tasks are worth it because of what you’re building—but that many aren’t. 

Through this kind of reflection, you might also awaken to the reality that this year is also your life, not just a means to an end. You can’t just toil away for a future goal without living some of your life now. As the saying goes, tomorrow is promised to no man. 

Make sure to define some things you’ll do this coming year purely to create options. We can’t see the future, so we discount the value of options. But remember: upside in a modern capitalist economy is usually unbounded. This is true of human networks also. You never know what that next person you meet will unlock for you (and you for them). 

Dead Reckoning

The sum of what you’re doing over the course of years should equal a life well lived. 

Look, I don’t care what the haters say, a huge portion of that is doing things that

✅ light you up,
✅ in places that are wonderful,
✅ with people who bring you joy.

To me, that’s what the Mirror of Erised would actually show you. 

If that wasn’t your 2025, promise me that 2026 will be the year that changes all of that. 

Life is too short. And there’s no Sorting Hat to tell you what you’re meant for. So take out a journal and measure what matters: you. 

I wish you peace and joy for this holiday season. 

And for the sum of your years. 

 ❤️ Andrew

Outro

This song has 34 million plays on Spotify, but I don’t know if I’ve heard it in decades. Don’t lose 2026. I believe in you.

“Losing a Whole Year” by Third Eye Blind

Cheers

🧠 Let’s talk: Preparing for 2026? Grab a free slot to meet with me, and let’s talk through how I can help you reach your goals. 💥 🙌

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Get unstuck, and crush it. Double period. 🔱