by Kyle Plotkin
Investment Advisor Representative
[email protected]
Am I the only one who can’t believe we’re already at the end of 2025? In some ways, the year flew by. In others, it felt like it took forever. That got me thinking about one New Year’s tradition we all know well: the New Year’s resolution.
You know the usual list—lose weight, exercise more, eat healthier, be nicer to people, spend less time online, read more books… I’m not entirely sure how one would conduct a truly “scientific” study on resolutions, but most of what I’ve seen suggests that roughly 90% of them fail—most before January even ends.
I get the appeal. A new year feels like a fresh start and a clean slate, a chance to make positive changes or finally fix something that’s been nagging at you. When I managed a local gym, our sales team loved January and the surge of new members it brought. Our regulars, on the other hand, weren’t quite as thrilled about waiting for treadmills, packed spin classes, or overflowing parking lots at 6 p.m. But everyone knew the crowds would thin out in a couple of weeks… and they always did.
Personally, I’ve never had much success with New Year’s resolutions. What difference does a new number on the calendar really make, day-to-day? Not much, at least for me. When I decide to make a meaningful change, it’s usually on my own timeline—when I’m truly ready.
The last time I made that commitment was about a year and a half ago. I just knew it was time. Since then, I’ve only missed a handful of days exercising—and some two-a-days have helped make up for the difference. Are the results perfect? Not even close. But years of on-again, off-again attempts have taught me that perfection isn’t the goal. Consistency is. And that mindset is one of the keys that has allowed me to stick with it.
A recent article in Forbes offered an interesting take on how to make resolutions more successful, built around the old saying that “a goal without a plan is just a wish.” The idea is to break your week down into hours—168 in total. If sleeping and working take up about 100 of those hours, that leaves 68 hours of free time.
Instead of saying, “I’m going to work out for an hour a day, five days a week,” try looking at it as a percentage. Five hours of exercise uses up about 7.4% of those 68 free hours. I don’t know about you, but committing 7.4% of my free time feels a lot more doable.
Will that approach work for everyone? Of course not. But sometimes looking at things a little differently is all it takes to make them feel achievable.
With that, I hope you’ve had a wonderful holiday season so far, and I wish you all the very best in 2026.