Turning Intention into Action: Financial Planning with Purpose for 2026
As a new year begins, many people start thinking about goals: the habits we want to change, the financial decisions we hope to improve, the plans we want to bring into sharper focus. But beneath every goal lies something deeper and more consequential: intention.
In the Buddhist tradition I practice, intention is not casual or fleeting. It is deliberate, conscious, and deeply personal — often acknowledged silently and only later translated into action. Before offering incense on the altar, one pauses to ask: What am I intending and hoping to bring forward?
The same can be said about financial planning. People rarely walk into our office already holding fully formed financial intentions. More often, they arrive with hopes, fears, desires, or the sense that something in their financial life could be better. Our work at New Capital Management begins by helping clients identify their deeper intentions, and then by assisting them in actualizing those intentions through practical, measurable steps.
As you head into 2026, this may be the most valuable financial exercise you can undertake: not simply creating goals but understanding the intention that gives those goals meaning.
Intention Comes Before the Numbers
In our first meeting with new clients, we begin with a different kind of conversation. People talk — not about markets or portfolios, but about their lives. They tell us what they value, what they fear, where they feel stuck, and what they quietly hope might be possible. Sometimes they share these things openly; sometimes it takes patience, privacy, and the right environment for intentions to surface.
Our Discovery Meeting is conducted more like a conversation than an audit. We take a deliberately patient approach that allows us to uncover intentions, because intention must come before tactics. A Roth conversion, a charitable strategy, or a retirement plan is meaningless unless it is tied to something deeper. As fiduciaries, we do not begin with the tools of planning; we start with the human beings sitting across from us.
Only after we understand the intention do we begin the process of turning it into action.
When Does Intention Become a Financial Plan?
Our second meeting, the financial planning meeting, is where we use financial planning software and collaborative modeling to translate intentions into actual forecasts: timelines, costs, tax implications, income, needs, and spending flexibility.
Many people discover that what they assumed was impossible may, in fact, be entirely within reach. For example, we have seen people walk in convinced they must work another eight years, only to learn they could retire in three — or retire now, provided they are willing to adjust certain spending habits. Others learn they have far more capacity for charitable giving than they imagined, or that supporting a child or grandchild is attainable without jeopardizing their own future.
These meetings often end with something you wouldn’t expect from financial planning: relief, joy, and excitement. We’ve had people tap-dance out of our offices because, for the first time, their deeply held intentions have a path forward.
Setting Your 2026 Priorities: Four Areas to Explore
While no two financial blueprints are the same — and no responsible fiduciary would prescribe tactics without understanding your personal situation, there are four broad categories where many clients choose to anchor their intentions for the year ahead.
1. Retirement Readiness: What Future Are You Intending?
Retirement planning is less about picking a date and more about articulating a vision for how you want to live. Ask yourself:
• Do I intend to relax? To reinvent? To spend more time with family?
• Do I want freedom from financial worry, or the freedom to pursue something new
Once intention is clear, goals become specific: reducing expenses, maximizing savings, adjusting investment strategy, or mapping an earlier retirement into their financial plan.
2. Philanthropy and Giving: How Do You Want Your Values to Move into the World?Many people harbor charitable intentions long before they begin to plan to give charitably. Tools such as donor-advised funds can make giving more structured, more tax-efficient, and more aligned with a family’s values — and often reveal capacity for generosity that clients did not realize they had.
3. Tax Planning: What Decisions Today Create More Financial Freedom Tomorrow?Tax planning is not a checklist of one-size-fits-all strategies; it is a way to align actions with intent. For one family, minimizing lifetime taxes may involve accelerating income. For another, it may mean delaying Roth conversions for reasons related to their situation. Intention clarifies which tools and tactics matter.
4. Investment Alignment: Does Your Portfolio Reflect Your Purpose?
An investment portfolio should not be a collection of tactics; it should reflect the life you intend to build. When your intentions are known, we can design portfolios that support them: appropriately diversified, tax-aware, long-term-oriented, and free from performance-chasing or emotional reactions.
Shared Intentions, Different Priorities
Couples often worry when their financial intentions are not perfectly aligned. One spouse may want a second home; the other spouse may prefer travel. One may feel strongly about giving; the other may feel hesitant.
These differences do not hinder planning — they enrich it.
Our role is not to force alignment but to discover where it already exists, and to show couples that many of their aspirations are not mutually exclusive. Often, spouses can have 80% of everything they want — just not all at once, and not without trade-offs. Planning helps clarify which intentions run deepest, which goals matter most, and how both spouses can see their desires reflected in the future they are building together.
Why Should 2026 Begin with One Intention Above All?
If there is one intention I would encourage for 2026, it is this:
Find a fiduciary advisor who takes the time to understand your intentions — not just your numbers. And if you already have a fiduciary advisor, make sure to visit with them this year.
We are in the golden age of independent advisory firms. Highly qualified fiduciaries have the responsibility to help individuals and families bring their intentions into the world with clarity, structure, and measurable steps. A trusted advisor becomes both a guide and a partner in actualizing your intentions, not just for 2026 but for the trajectory of your life.
Your Intention Shapes Everything
• What we intend shapes what we do.
• What we do shapes what is possible.
• And what is possible shapes the life we ultimately live.
As you look ahead to 2026, ask yourself not only What do I want to accomplish? But also, what do I intend?
As we think of the year ahead as an opportunity, then intention is the starting point. Action is the path. And planning is the bridge between the two.
When you’re ready to explore your own intentions more deeply, we are here. Let’s talk about what’s possible.
Leonard M. Golub, CFA
President