New Year's Resolutions

The best way to stick to a New Year's resolution is not starting on the 1st of January. It's starting now. Not tomorrow, not after the holidays, not once things "settle down". Now.

Most resolutions fail because they're scheduled instead of lived. Momentum doesn't care about dates; it responds to action, repetition, and friction, not calendars.

I generally avoid giving advice. Most advice only makes sense once you've lived it, and very few ideas genuinely change behaviour simply because you heard them articulated by someone else.

This is one of the rare exceptions, a properly lindy one: Just start. There is no tomorrow.

I was exactly where you might be now. I had written my plans, protocols, and goals just before Christmas. Everything was neatly outlined, rationalised, and ready. And then I found myself waiting for January 1st, almost excited to start, even though I knew full well that, thanks to the antics the night before, "January 1st" would really mean January 2nd.

Action creates momentum, and momentum creates clarity, not the other way around. Taking the first step matters more than perfect sequencing or elegant planning. From there, inertia does most of the work.

The more interesting question becomes what you choose to prioritise.

For me, the answer is simple: health comes first, above everything else, above business, relationships, even family and friends. That sounds extreme until you sit with it properly.

When you're healthy, you want everything. When you're not, the only thing you want is to be healthy. It's easy to forget that when things are going well, but impossible to ignore when they aren't.

Health is the only asset you're forced to depreciate daily.

Just speak to any old billionaire and ask them what they would trade for their health or a few more good hours of time. They will pay exorbitant amounts of money for it. At the margin, health and time are the only things that truly matter, the things no amount of wealth can reliably buy back.

When health is right, everything else flows: energy, patience, focus, ambition, curiosity. Remove health, and the rest collapses quickly. That's why I've decided to treat 2026 as the year of health, not as a slogan, but as a root variable.

To make this practical, I categorise life into five core areas. Not as goals, but as lenses, a way to audit inputs rather than obsess over outcomes.

Health — Maintenance. Anything related to physical or physiological health: sleep, exercise, nutrition. This is the base layer. Neglect it and everything above it becomes fragile. This is the only category I actively track, because it has a clear baseline: you either meet it or you don't.

Wealth — Production. Did I produce something of value for the world today? Not as an abstract ambition, but as a concrete act. Wealth is rarely a goal; it's usually a consequence.

Relationships — Connection. Did I nurture existing relationships, spark a new one, or go slightly out of my comfort zone socially? Most meaningful relationships don't begin with intent, and you never know where a small, random conversation will lead.

Learning — Wisdom. Did I learn something or reflect deeply? This can be consumption or production. The medium doesn't matter. Though lindy sources, especially classic books, tend to have higher information density and have stood the test of time. Well-crafted ideas compound.

Spirituality — Presence. Not in a mystical sense, but as grounded awareness. Mindfulness, gratitude, stillness. Whatever technique reconnects you with reality.

This all collapses into a simple equation: Healthy Body = Healthy Mind = Healthy Relationships = Healthy Business Endeavours

What starting now looked like...

I didn't try to optimise the day or turn it into a performance. I just focused on doing the obvious things properly.

Sleep came first. I woke up early and genuinely didn't want to get out of bed even though I'd had eight hours. Lying there felt comfortable, familiar, tempting. But I knew that sitting there wasn't going to change anything, so I forced myself up anyway.

Then exercise. I went boxing. At multiple points I wanted to stop. I hadn't worked out properly in two weeks, my body was tired, and the voice in my head was negotiating an exit, even trying to sound sensible by saying things like don't injure yourself, especially since I'd only just come back from injury. But something underneath kept me going. I told myself we weren't finished. Then again. And again. Each round became a small internal argument, and each time I chose to stay. By the end, it wasn't about fitness anymore, it was about proving to myself that I could keep going when I wanted to quit. By the end of about forty-five minutes, I felt less tired than when I started and genuinely wanted to keep going. It's slightly insane what momentum does to perception.

Most resistance is just familiarity trying to protect itself.

After that came recovery and fuel: sauna, cold shower, all the things I really didn't want to do, but did anyway, followed by a healthy meal. Part of this was simply washing out the indulgence of Christmas through heat, sweat, and clean food.

On the walk home, I passed my favourite pasta place. It was busy, people sitting outside, and I noticed the pull, not hunger exactly, more the familiarity of it.

A few minutes later I walked past Nando's, and another familiar thought surfaced: it's chicken, it's healthy, it's less hassle.

What changed wasn't restraint, but awareness. The thoughts still appeared, but they felt flatter and easier to observe without acting on. Momentum seemed to dull their urgency.

It wasn't discipline, it was how good it felt afterwards. I also discovered that eating off a chopping board is elite: cook, cut, eat, minimal washing up. First time doing it. Small win.

With energy sorted, work flowed naturally. I cleared my to-do list for the day, and that momentum carried me into tasks that had been sitting untouched for three months.

Socially, I felt naturally inclined to reach out to old friends I hadn't spoken to in a while. I also spoke to strangers, the cashier in my local shop, someone in the sauna where I learned what they're building, and a few people about their Christmas plans. It reinforced something simple: a healthy social life is built from small, curious moments.

I ate the meal I'd just cooked at the kitchen counter. Normally, I would label this as "entertainment time" and put on something mindless, random clips, old Top Gear, anything that felt earned precisely because it wasn't "learning time". That script usually runs automatically.

Instead, I found myself learning more about loss functions and backpropagation in AI and large language models. It wasn't effortful or disciplined; it just felt like the natural continuation of the day.

Momentum made the better choice feel easier.

I'm sitting here now, writing this in a new journal on Monday December the 29th. Present, quiet, grounded.

There were no grand resolutions and no motivational speeches. Just stacking small, boring, powerful inputs.

It doesn't start on an arbitrary date. It starts today.

Calendars don't change behaviour. Inputs do.

Let's make 2026 the year of real, everyday health.