New Year, New You?

photo credit LanaSweet / Shutterstock.com

Every January, the same conversations resurface. People talk about wanting to save more, spend less, feel more in control, to make this year the one where things finally stick. It’s a thought many people return to year after year. That instinct isn’t unique, and it isn’t a failure of discipline or ambition.

Recent surveys from organisations like CBA, Finder, NAB, and Westpac all point to the same broad theme: Australians consistently say they want to improve their financial position, particularly by saving more and feeling more stable. Different surveys use different language, but the message is remarkably consistent. People aren’t disengaged from their money.They’re trying.

So if you’re starting this year with similar thoughts, you’re not behind, you’re in the majority.

A Word About “New Year, New You”

There’s nothing wrong with a fresh start. January gives us a natural pause, a moment to reflect, reset, and think about what we want the year ahead to look like. That’s normal, it’s healthy.

But it’s also worth being honest about something: if last year’s goals didn’t quite land, there’s nothing magical about January 1 that suddenly fixes that. The calendar didn’t cause the problem, and it won’t solve it on its own.

That doesn’t mean you lack willpower and It doesn’t mean you didn’t want it badly enough.

It usually means something else was at play. For example: I said to myself last year, I would write an article about New Year Resolutions close to the start of the New Year and here it is near the end of January and I am finally writing it. That gap between intention and action is where most plans quietly come unstuck.

This is no different to saying “this year I’ll be more consistent with money” and actually being consistent because these are two very different things.

Intention Is Common. Consistency Is the Skill.

Surveys are very good at capturing intention. They tell us what people want to do:

• Save more

• Reduce stress

• Get ahead

• Feel organised rather than reactive

  
  

What they don’t capture is how hard it can be to translate those intentions into everyday behaviour, especially once life starts moving again. Bills don’t arrive annually. Spending decisions aren’t made once a year. Money is handled in dozens of small moments, week after week. This is where you typically get stuck.

Not because they don’t care, but because they’re relying on motivation to do a job that actually belongs to structure.

Cutting Back Only Works If Something Happens Next

One of the most common themes in those surveys is the intention to cut back on discretionary spending. Fewer impulse purchases, more awareness of where money goes.

That’s a good goal to have, but it comes with an important caveat.

Cutting back only creates progress if the freed-up money is deliberately directed somewhere else. If reduced spending simply makes room for new consumption later, a different purchase, a deferred reward, a lifestyle upgrade, then nothing has really changed. The money didn’t disappear. It just changed costumes. This is one of the traps people most often fall into: they spend less in one area, feel briefly virtuous, then unconsciously reassign the money somewhere else.

The result? A sense of effort without momentum.

Saving and investing don’t happen automatically just because spending dips. They happen when there’s a clear destination for the surplus.

The Real Challenge Isn’t Desire — It’s Design

If you're like most people, the desire for better financial outcomes isn’t the problem. You’ve wanted things to feel more under control for a fair while now, so long that it’s not about motivation anymore. What's needed is a way to make the right behaviour easier than the default one. Achieving the consistency needed rarely comes from: trying harder, monitoring yourself constantly, relying on restraint in the moment. It comes from reducing the number of decisions money asks you to make.

When saving happens automatically, when investing isn’t something you “get around to”, then good money behaviour doesn’t require daily negotiation with yourself. This isn't about being perfect. It’s about friction — and where it shows up.

April is the culprit

This is where The idea of the New Year let's us down, where January can be misleading.

At the start of the year, motivation is high. There’s space to think. The year feels open. Plans seem simple. Then life resumes:

• Work ramps up

• Schedules fill

• Unexpected costs appear

• Decisions stack on top of decisions

  
  

Nothing dramatic changes, but density increases. Money becomes one more thing to manage rather than something that works in the background. Without systems in place, intention alone struggles to survive that pressure. This is why so many people feel frustrated by April, not January.

Momentum Beats Motivation

The people who make progress year after year usually aren’t more disciplined than you. they’ve just arranged things so that the next good decision is obvious. They see things ordered so that, to them, the cost of inconsistency is higher than the cost of doing nothing. In their life money moves in predictable, boring ways. They don’t ask themselves every month whether they feel like saving. They don’t renegotiate the plan constantly and they don’t rely on New Year enthusiasm to do structural work. Momentum carries them when motivation fades.

If This Sounds Familiar, That’s the Point

The value of those surveys isn’t that they tell you what to do. It’s that they remind you you’re not uniquely broken for wanting change, or for finding it harder than expected to sustain.

Most people start the year with good intentions. Many people cut back at some point. Fewer people convert that effort into lasting progress. The difference isn’t character, It’s architecture.

A Better Question to Ask This Year

Instead of:

“How can I be better with money this year?”

Try asking:

“What would make consistency easier to maintain?”

That shift matters because wanting improvement is common. Designing for follow-through is rare. That’s where real change usually begins, quietly, structurally, and without fanfare.

If you recognised yourself in this, you’re not alone, and you don’t need another burst of motivation. You might just need a clearer structure. If you’d like to talk that through, I'd love to have that conversation.