Annual Review 2025
Between Christmas and New Year's, I sat down to review everything that happened in 2025. I'm doing this for the 6th time in a row, and it is easily the the most valuable ritual I've adopted for my business and my life.
Each year, I look back on what the year brought, how I spent my time, and what I achieved. And using those insights, I plan my moves for the next year.
Today I want to share that review with you, both as a matter of public accountability, and because I personally learned a ton from other people's annual reviews and I'd like to pay it forward.
So let's dive in!
2025 Highlights
- Started working with the Valued Cultures team, coaching AAA clients like Bethesda Game Studio and MachineGames
- Upgraded my personal brand and website
- Hit 8000 connections/followers on Linkedin
- Was asked to join 8 proposals for a Dutch internal professionalization subsidy call, of which 5 were granted.
- Saw the Northern Lights
- Family visit to Disneyland
Reflection on 2025 Goals
✅ Revenue goal: +25% YoY
❌ Key Measurable: work with 18 coaching clients
The overarching objective of these two goals was to do bigger coaching trajectories with fewer clients so I can better focus my efforts, and ultimately have a bigger impact. At 17 clients coached, I fell just short of the 18 clients I had projected, but still hit that bigger objective.
✅ Create v2 of the LongGameOS coaching program
I finished v2 of the program and implemented it with 4 clients, which provided plenty of ideas to further improve the program.
❌ Create FIRM video course
I made a little headway putting together the structure for the course, but that's about it.
Seeing as this marks the 3rd year in a row where I have failed to make meaningful progress towards this goal, I'm recognizing that there is something holding me back from fully diving into this. I know myself well enough by now that without that spark I will never give this project the attention it deserves, so I'm going to go in the opposite direction:
I'm taking this off my goals list for the foreseeable future, trusting that a time will come where I will find an angle for it that does give me energy.
✅ Visit 5 events, speak at 2
I visited a grand total of 7 events, and spoke at 3. This included a roundtable at DICE Europe, and a series of workshops (plus a Northern Light sighting) at Boden Game Camp.
✅ Go on 4 date nights
Four date nights might not sound like a lot, but coming from 1-2 per year this is a significant increase. In addition, we decided to ban Netflix for 1 night a week to do something else together - be it a board game or just chatting with a glass of wine. Taken together, these two small steps have helped us feel a lot more connected through the noise of running a household.
Things I loved in 2025
Last week I shared a list of my favorite songs, movies, books and, most importantly, games of 2025. Check them out here:
My Favorite Things of 2025
My goals for 2025
Recognizing how much events and client travel eats into my time for extra goals, I'm choosing to slim down my list of goals even further, putting all the focus on client work and things that support it.
Revenue goal: +25% YoY
Key measurable: work with 18 clients
Keeping the objective of delivering bigger projects across fewer clients, these two goals together should allow me to grow without overstretching.
Theme: Martijn Inc
All focus will go to delivering a better coaching experience and further refining and solidifying my coaching method, so that I can deliver the best possible value for my clients
📔 Write LGOS implementation workbook
For my core coaching offer, I want to be able to give my clients something tangible that will serve as the glue between our sessions together. My goal is to create something that ties together the work we do in the sessions, the work they're doing in-between, and background info on the most salient elements of the framework. In the longer run, this workbook can then serve as both a document that captures our work together, and an information repository for how to use it afterwards.
📖 Write LGOS employee handbook
In a similar vein, I want to make it easier for clients to share the work we've done with their teams. By creating a short and practical handbook, it will be that much easier to both share the new way of working, and invite the rest of the team to become an active part of it.
🗣️ Visit 5 events, and speak at 2
Events remain one of the highest ROI activities in my business development toolbox, and having this goal on the list keeps me focused on creating and delivering new talks.
📧 Send 25 newsletters
I failed pretty spectacularly on the newsletter front last year, so I'm putting it front and center again
🏋️ Workout and meditate 200 times
Adding this back into my goals to make it a bit more explicit for myself. My primary goal is to move/lift and meditate as many days as possible, but I'm adding two goals within that. I want to increase my meditations from 10 to 20 minutes by end-of-year, and increase the weights on my core exercises by 20%
🥂 Go on 4 date nights
We're sticking with 4 date nights for now as the bar to clear, but you better believe we'll be looking for ways to hit the stretch goal of 5 or, god forbid, 6!
If you enjoyed this article, consider giving it some love on LinkedIn by liking it or reposting it to share with your network.
Press "S" to support!
Right Now
Playing - Spider-Man 2
I'm taking my sweet time with this one, clearing all the optional objectives because swinging through New York just feels so damn good.
Reading - A Profound Waste of Time
Still enjoying issue 4 and 5 while I get mentally ready to dive into a full fledged book again. Will likely be set the table, which was recently recommended by Jim Hendriks.
Watching - Stranger Things Season 5
We just finished the last season of Stranger Things. I can't say I enjoyed it too much as they seemed to have used tropes as their main building blocks, but the way they wrap things up does give a nice feeling of closure.
See you in two weeks!
Martijn
Whenever you're ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:
Get smart 🤓
Join 1000+ subscribers to The Long Game newsletter
Get started 💪
Take the Long Game Performance Assessment to find out the areas where your studio shines, and where you could stand to improve.
Get serious 🔥
Work with me to level up your studio management structures and processes
