– 9 January 2026 –
When I am home, I go to the gym five days a week—Monday through Friday. I prefer early mornings, when the gym is quiet and predictable. For eleven months of the year, it is mostly the regulars. We value our routines, and we value the small community that forms around them.
The first few weeks of January disrupt that rhythm.
As I navigated a full car park at 7:00 a.m. on January 2, I knew exactly what awaited me inside. The gym was crowded with newcomers eager to fulfill their health and fitness resolutions and undo the excesses of the holidays.
They were joined by an army of newly minted trainers, each offering new techniques, extended training packages, and a carefully curated array of supplements.
I understand the appeal. Wanting to improve one’s health is admirable. And for the gym, January brings a welcome influx of annual contracts—good for cash flow and, indirectly, helpful in keeping dues reasonable for the rest of us.
As I settled into my hour on the step machine and my heart rate climbed into the mid 140s, I began thinking about how familiar this pattern felt. Not just in fitness—but in finance.
An annual gym membership is purchased with optimism, often to be abandoned when routine gives way to reality.
Financial resolutions often follow the same trajectory: funded with enthusiasm, then quietly shelved when discipline, coordination, and sustained execution are required.
Most January newcomers disappear by month’s end, just as many financial resolutions fail to survive the year.
commitment sustained in behavior
Resolutions, Revisited
Every January, the ritual repeats. A gym membership is purchased, a trainer is hired, supplements are stocked, and a full year is committed on paper. For a short while, motivation feels indistinguishable from progress. Then the treadmill sits unused.
The failure is rarely a lack of intent—it is a failure of design. Commitment recorded in a contract does not guarantee commitment sustained in behavior.
Financial resolutions follow the same arc. Advisors are engaged, structures assembled, and complexity embraced as a proxy for seriousness. Like buying equipment before forming habits, sophisticated entities and strategies are often adopted before foundational questions are answered.
A personal trainer cannot create fitness without consistent attendance, just as expert counsel cannot compensate for unclear financial intent. No amount of professional oversight substitutes for a plan aligned with how someone actually lives.
January plans—physical and financial alike—are built under ideal conditions. They assume a future self with more discipline, more time, and a greater tolerance for friction than reality allows.
Gyms are chosen for January motivation, not February logistics. Financial strategies are optimized for best-case scenarios rather than the disruptions of real life. When travel resumes, schedules fill, and complexity compounds, the plan quietly collapses where life intrudes.
Overconfidence accelerates the failure. Expensive equipment is mistaken for progress; elaborate financial architecture is mistaken for strategy.
Programs borrowed from others—whether workout regimens or wealth structures—fail fastest because they ignore individual constraints.
The body rebels against plans designed for someone else, just as financial systems strain when imported into lives defined by mobility, multiple jurisdictions, and shifting priorities.
Sustainable fitness is not intense—it is repeatable. The same is true of durable financial outcomes. Simple routines outlast complex ones; systems outperform motivation.
Success is not the product of a powerful start or a single resolution, but of processes that endure imperfect weeks and inconvenient realities.
The goal is not to feel productive in January, but to remain healthy—financially and otherwise—by December.
January Rituals – Review, Reflect, Refresh
January remains one of my favorite months. After December’s pace of family gatherings, overcrowded airports and planes, and other end-of-year commitments, life slows just enough to create space for reflection.
I use this time to review what I have actually accomplished—not just financially, but across health, lifestyle, and long-term goals.
Do my existing objectives still align with the horizon I envision? Am I moving toward that horizon in a way that is realistic and sustainable? Over the next twelve months, where should I focus, refocus, or deliberately refrain?
This naturally leads to another question: what resources or behavioral changes are truly required—and which ones are simply aspirational noise?
A meme caught my attention recently: “Rich people don’t make New Year’s resolutions. They remove negatives from their lives—bad habits, toxic people, and unnecessary possessions.”
The same principle applies to investing. Progress often comes less from adding new strategies than from purging poor ones: underperforming assets, misaligned structures, and habits that quietly erode clarity.
I can think of no better way to begin the year than by implementing changes that are realistic, aligned with one’s actual lifestyle, and capable of being sustained throughout the year—not just during the first few weeks of January.
but to remain healthy by December
As you enter 2026, how are you posturing yourself? Have you taken inventory of what is working, what needs adjustment, and what should be removed altogether? For some, this requires modest refinement. For others, it may call for more meaningful change.
Choosing the Right Gym—or its Financial Equivalent—Matters
The Obris community is a valuable resource for ideas, perspective, and shared experience across investing, diversification, and lifestyle design.
Equally important is choosing the right trainers and tools: advisors, structures, and strategies that align with the freedom and life you are actually trying to build.
Alignment, not intensity, is what endures.
We are also a great source for strategic investing to support your goals. Stay tuned for more on this next week.
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