It is that time of the year again, when the days somehow move faster, the calendar fills with holiday trips and gatherings, and we begin to ask ourselves:
How has this year been for me?
Did I live it the way I intended?
The coming of a new year often feels like a reset button, a gift that says, “You can begin again.”
But the truth is, we do not have to wait until 1 January.
It is never too late to start something.
Maybe there was something you wanted to work on this year: your health, your finances, your relationships, or simply your mental space, and somewhere along the way, life got in the way.
Life can sometimes feel like a string of tasks, one blending into the next. Days pass, then weeks, then months. Before you know it, the entire year has slipped by almost unnoticed.
So instead of letting 2025 slide quietly into 2026, I wanted to write this piece, partly as my own reflection, and partly as an invitation for you to take stock of your year too. My hope is that by looking back with intention, we can enter 2026 with more clarity, purpose, and hope, knowing that we can still start, or start again, from wherever we are.
Building a Solid Foundation
When 2025 began, I chose a simple theme to anchor my year:
“Building a Solid Foundation.”
I wanted this to be a theme that applied to all areas of my life: my work with clients, and my own physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. And as someone who walks with clients through their life decisions, I wanted to be just as intentional with my own.
At Providend, we usually begin our year with our annual retreat. This year, we were in Danang. It was a time of laughter, honest reflection, and a lot of conversations about where we are headed as a firm. We looked back at 2024 and charted the path ahead for 2025. As a company, we agreed that this would be a year to keep strengthening our foundations so that we can serve our clients and one another well for many years to come.
Picture of us on our retreat in Danang.
Every year, Providend gives out five SPIRIT awards to staff who live out our core values: Strong Mind, Passionate Belief, Inspiring One Another, Running Independently, Yet As a Team. Instead of sales awards that are common in the finance industry, these are values awards, and they are based on company-wide voting from colleagues across all departments.
This year, I was very honoured to receive the “Yet As a Team” award. This value is about aligning our goals, supporting one another, and choosing to succeed together rather than alone. Receiving this award was also a reminder that building a solid foundation is not a solo project. It usually happens in community, with people who challenge us, encourage us, and walk alongside us.
One of the ways this showed up very tangibly for me this year was through a workshop our CEO, Christopher Tan, conducted for all of us at Providend.
Healthspan, Ikigai, and the Sadness of “Starting Late”
At Providend, a huge part of what we do is helping clients make life decisions first, what we now call ikigai decisions, before making financial decisions. Our wealth then becomes an enabler of those ikigai decisions, choices that make our day-to-day life feel worth living.
In that same spirit, our CEO, Chris spoke to us about healthspan, the years in which we are not just alive, but in reasonably good health. While ikigai is about making daily decisions that make your life feel worth living, health span is about having the physical and mental capacity to actually enjoy that life. The best financial plan means little if our health does not allow us to enjoy the life we have planned for.
Chris shared how, while our lifespans are generally getting longer, our healthspans may not necessarily be keeping up. If we do not intentionally care for our bodies and minds, we may spend more years alive, but fewer years truly living.
Some of the key pillars to improving healthspan that Chris highlighted were:
- Exercise
- Nutrition
- Sleep
- Emotional health
- Supplements
If I were being honest, that talk made me feel a little sad. I realised I had spent decades not really prioritising my health. I did care about emotional health, and I enjoyed sports, but I never really thought of holistic health, my food, my sleep, my energy, as something to be stewarded intentionally. In reality, I had spent many years eating junk food and not really caring much about sleep.
In finance, we talk so much about compounding and building healthy financial habits like budgeting and investing from a young age.
But what about those of us who no longer feel young?
Or those who feel they “should have started earlier”?
As I sat with that sadness, a simple quote floated into my mind:
“It is never too late to start.”
Some of my own regrets have often sounded like this, and perhaps you might relate:
- If only I had started investing earlier.
- If only I had watched my health earlier.
- If only I had been more intentional sooner.
The problem is that living in regret often comes at the expense of what we can still change, the next week, the next month, the next year, even the next few decades of our lives.
At Providend, we often remind clients that they still have time to make meaningful changes, even if they feel late. At that moment, I realised I needed to tell myself the same thing.
I could hold on to the sadness of “starting late”, or I could let that sadness become the doorway to a new start.
Small changes can create big shifts in our lives.
And it is never too late to begin making them.
Why I Decided to Start Anyway
A huge motivation for me to start focusing on my holistic health is simple.
My wife and my daughter.
I want to grow old with my wife, with enough strength and energy to enjoy life alongside her.
I also want to be there for my daughter, to play, to travel, to make memories, and, if she chooses one day, to see her get married and maybe have children of her own.
So instead of staying stuck in regret, I made a decision to start paying attention to the areas that could support my health span.
Everyone is unique.
The way I choose to care for my health will look different from the way you do. As with financial planning, there is no one-size-fits-all template. What matters is not copying someone else’s routine, but asking:
“Which area of my health do I want to improve, and what small step can I take?”
Here were some of my small steps this year:
- Exercise: Making it a regular habit to move at least twice a week through pickleball, Pilates, or other workouts.
- Nutrition: If you know me, you would know that I grew up hating vegetables. This year, I started incorporating them into my meals. Now, I feel a bit strange if my meal has no greens.
- Sleep: I started tracking my sleep with my Apple Watch and noticed patterns. Some things helped, such as putting my phone away earlier and reading a physical book. Some things hurt, such as late-night snacks or sugary drinks too close to bedtime.
- Emotional health: Since the company mindfulness workshops last year, I have been practising gratitude journalling daily with The Five Minute Journal. It takes about five minutes a day but sets the tone for my inner world.
- Supplements: I subscribed to a personalised vitamin service to support my energy and cognitive function, including magnesium, vitamin B12, fish oil, creatine, and vitamin C.
While this list may not seem impressive to many, these small decisions became the structure that held my year and supported my wellbeing, and that makes them a big deal to me.
Just like investing, where small, consistent contributions compound over time, these habits are quietly reshaping my life.
Every time I make a better choice, even after a “bad day”, I am reminded again that it is never too late to start, and never too late to start again.
If you have your own list of small action steps, remember that what matters most is not how impressive they look to others, but how much they support your holistic wellbeing.
A Daily Gift
This past year, my daughter turned three years old.
Picture of my family celebrating my daughter’s 3rd birthday, and yes, it’s a Baby Shark theme.
That milestone brought a wave of gratitude. It reminded me that I had been given the gift of starting over. I started prioritising my health and wellbeing in a way I had not done in the previous decades. I am making decisions today that my future self, and hopefully my future family, will thank me for.
There are still days when I do not prioritise my sleep, or I feel unwell emotionally, or I fall back into old patterns. On those days, it is tempting to feel like I have “failed” the habit.
Yet I keep coming back to this truth:
Each day is a gift, a new day to start again.
Every morning is another chance to realign my choices with the life I want to live.
Every small step is still a step forward.
To me, that is one of the quiet wonders of being human. We are allowed to begin, to stop, and to begin again.
Looking Toward 2026: Building Upon What Matters
As I look into 2026, I do not feel the need for dramatic resolutions or a brand-new identity.
If anything, I want to continue building upon the foundations that I have laid in 2025. My current working theme for the new year (which may evolve as I reflect further) is:
“Building Upon the Solid Foundation.”
I want to continue building on the small steps I took this past year to build a healthy life in all areas. Not to chase perfection, but to keep starting, and starting again, whenever I drift.
The same is also true in our financial lives. You may not have started as early as you wished. You may have made mistakes. Yet from where you stand today, it is still possible to build something towards your financial goals.
It is never too late to start.
And it is never too late to start again.
An Invitation to You to Pause
Before 2025 slips away, I would like to offer you a moment, a gentle pause, a chance to reclaim your year.
Here are some reflections that might help. I hope you can take time to sit with at least one of these questions, to help you wrap 2025 well and start 2026 with intention.
Looking Back at 2025
- What is one small change or habit you started, or restarted, this year that made a meaningful difference to your wellbeing?
- What is your motivation for prioritising your health and wellbeing (for example, family, friends, loved ones, or yourself)?
- Who or what are you most grateful for as you look back on 2025?
Looking Ahead to 2026
- How would you like to care for your wellbeing in the year ahead (physically, emotionally, and financially)?
- What is one small, realistic step you can take in that area that your future self will thank you for?
- Who is someone you would like to share your intentions with, so that they can support you on your journey?
I hope you will enjoy the time that you set aside to reflect.
Sometimes the most transformative decisions are not big ones, but the small ones we make and follow through on, again and again.
If You Would Like Support With Your Wealth Planning
If, as you reflect, you realise that one area you would like to start, or start again, in is your wealth planning, I would be glad to journey with you.
At Providend, I have the privilege of walking with clients as they make sense of both their life and their wealth. Our work is grounded in helping clients make ikigai decisions before wealth decisions, aligning their resources with what truly matters. Your finances are not just figures to optimise. They are there to support the people and priorities that matter most to you.
Even if you feel you are starting late, you are still starting. And that is what matters.
If you would like to explore what this could look like for your own situation, my team and I would be happy to have a conversation.
Wishing You a Meaningful End to 2025
As this year wraps up, let me wish you in advance:
May you have a blessed Christmas, a restorative year-end, and a wonderful 2026.
May your new year be filled with many moments that make your life feel truly worth living.
And may you remember, wherever you find yourself right now,
it is never too late to start,
and never too late to start again.
This is an original article written by Sean Tan, Associate Adviser at Providend, the first fee-only wealth advisory firm in Southeast Asia and a leading wealth advisory firm in Asia.
If you are interested in joining our Providend Associate Adviser Programme, find out more here.
For more related resources, check out:
1. The Quest for Alpha: Why Striving to Beat the Market Is Often a Futile Pursuit
2. The Quest to Find a Trusted Financial Adviser
3. Stop Making New Year Resolutions Which Will Fail!
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