The Right Questions To Ask At The Start Of A New Year

It's a new year, and with it comes that familiar surge of energy and possibility. You're probably thinking about the months ahead—setting goals, planning what you want to accomplish. Maybe you're wrestling with some common financial questions:

What are the best strategies for this year? How should I manage my income and taxes? Should I make RSP contributions? What's my compensation plan for 2026? Where should I invest—corporate account, TFSA, RSP?

These are all valid questions. But before diving into tactics and strategies, there's a better place to start.

Step Away from the Spreadsheet

Before getting into the mechanics of which accounts to use or how to structure your compensation, you need to answer a more fundamental question: Where am I today?

This goes beyond your net worth or investment returns. Money shows up in our lives in countless ways—how we spend our time, whether we feel stressed or confident about our finances, whether money serves as a tool for flexibility or a source of anxiety.

Questions to Ask Yourself

How do I feel about my financial situation? Not just the numbers, but your emotional relationship with money. Do you feel confident or stressed? Empowered or overwhelmed?

What does my calendar say about my financial choices? Your calendar reveals how you spend your time and energy. Are you allocating your hours toward what truly matters to you?

Am I avoiding important financial conversations or decisions? Sometimes what we're not doing tells us as much as what we are doing.

If you're struggling with these reflections, try this: If nothing changed for the next three to five years, how would you feel about your life?

Where Do You Want to Go?

Many of us move into a new year without truly deciding where we want to go. We carry vague intentions or borrowed goals—things we think we should want based on what our peers are doing or what society says success looks like.

Here's the truth: where you're going is a moving target, and that's okay. Your goals will evolve. But you need to know what they look like today so you have something to work toward.

Questions to Guide Your Direction

What would "enough" look like? Many chiropractors tell us they want to travel more, work less, or spend more time with family. But what would that actually look like? When would you know you have enough to prioritize these other things?

What am I optimizing for right now? Are you in a growth phase, focused on building your practice? Do you need stability? Are you seeking freedom and flexibility? Or is your personal health the priority?

If I removed comparison entirely, what would I truly want? If you took comparison completely out of the equation—no keeping up with the Joneses—would the things you want actually be your desires? Or are you chasing someone else's definition of success?

What would I regret five years from now if I didn't prioritize it today? Some opportunities have expiration dates.

How Will You Get There?

You know where you are. You have a sense of where you want to go. Now comes the question: how do you bridge that gap?

Here's where most people want to jump straight to tactics—account selection, tax strategies, investment vehicles. But you're not quite ready for that yet.

Build Your Framework First

Do you have rules or guidelines for major financial decisions? These might look like:

• "We prioritize one family experience or trip each year, no matter what."
• "When our income increases, we'll increase both our lifestyle spending and our savings proportionally."
• "We won't take on new debt unless our cash flow clearly supports it."

Do you have consistent habits around money? It's not about motivation—motivation fades. It's about building systems that work regardless of how you feel on any given day.

Think about someone who committed to 20 minutes of movement every day for 365 days. Twenty minutes doesn't sound like much, but the consistency builds identity. The same principle applies to your financial life.

The Power of Accountability

Financial planning isn't a one-time event. Real financial planning is a process.

This is especially valuable for couples. Even when both partners are financially engaged, having an unbiased third party to walk through decisions with makes an enormous difference.

Financial planning conversations should constantly revisit three questions: Where are you today? Where do you want to go? How are you going to get there? These answers will change every few months because your life is fluid.

When Do Tactics Come In?

Once you're clear on where you are and where you want to go, the tactics become obvious: Here's how we'll manage your cash flow this year. Here's the income strategy that makes sense. Here's where you should be saving and investing.

The tactics are part of the process—but they're not the starting point.

Your Next Step

Take some time to reflect. Not just on your net worth or last year's investment returns, but on the bigger questions:

Where are you today—really? Beyond the numbers, how do you feel about your financial life?

Where do you want to go? What would enough look like?

What processes and systems do you have in place to help ensure you get there?

The start of a new year is the perfect time for this kind of reflection. It's an opportunity to reset, to get clear on what matters, and to map out a plan that actually aligns with the life you want to live.

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