Goals, goals, goals. If you are anything like me, you hate that word and all that it seems to entail. It seems like in every area of life the aspect of setting goals seems to pop up. Setting goals is one of those things that seems go right along with success. You set goals and you achieve success. You don’t set goals and you will encounter failure. The importance of setting goals for success in your finances is essential.
Let me be the first to tell that this is absolutely untrue. Let’s see now. Here’s a goal to be set: I have a goal to be a millionaire. No worries of money and I would be able to buy whatever my heart desires. Sound like a wonderful goal to you? Well lets see, my goal is set. Does that mean that I will be a millionaire? Unfortunately, no, I can’t just set a goal like this and sit down and be a couch potato and BAM I just became that millionaire. That is an exaggerated example but I think you see the point. It takes more than just setting that goal. What else does it take though?
If Setting Goals Doesn’t Equal Success Why Bother?
As with my earlier example, you can clearly see that just setting a goal does not guarantee us success. That is okay though. Setting goals is typically only the first step to success. If you go through all the steps then yes you can find success. You unfortunately can not just set the goal and then find success. You must follow all the steps to find your success in any area. These steps include:
- Know and admit where you are in this area. You need to know and acknowledge where you are and how far away you are from the things that you really want. This is different for everyone. There are a lot of ways to do this. You need to know several things so you can have a complete picture of your finances. When you start doing this there are a lot of things you need to look at. First thing that you should get to get a good overview is get your credit report. That gives you an overall look of your debts, perhaps even debts that you are unaware of. When I did mine for the first time I discovered an old cable bill was impacting mine. Score wise you need to be above 600, the higher the better. Next you need to figure out your income and your bills and expenses, even your trip to Starbucks for your daily coffee. Ideally your income should be more than your bills and expenses. Once you have looked at all of these aspects you should be able to see where you are struggling at.
- Decide and set your goals. What is your area of struggle? Find where you have problems and make a goal to improve it. What is your end goal? Do you need a better credit score? Improve credit score. Too much debt? Pay some debts off. Not enough income? Increase your income by finding new ways to make more. Too many expenses? Pay some things off or find a way to cut back on those expenses.
- Find your why. Figure out why you are doing this and for who. You are not doing this for no reason. There is something that has pushed you to this point of looking to improve your life.
- Formulate a game plan. How are you going to achieve your ultimate goal? If you are like most people that involves paying some debts off or cutting out some expenses. Sometimes its even both. How to do this will depend on where you decided you are at. Do you need to increase you income or maybe just cancel some of your subscriptions such as Netflix, Hulu, or Disney+? Decide what you need to change and research it to find the best way to change the situation.
- Execute your game plan. Now that you have done your research, you need to start working towards doing whatever it is that is need to change your situation. Maybe that is to get a second job or just to earn a little of side money. Maybe its something else; whatever it is get started and don’t give up.
- Success. YOU MADE IT! Your goal is completed and you have achieved your success you have been dreaming of.
Figured Out Your Goals…What Now?
Congratulations! You have figured out your goals. You know where you want to be. One thing you need to be sure of is the fact that your goal is not too big. A homeless person doesn’t set a goal of owning a mansion. The goals are smaller going something like this. A goal of a job, then possibly a form of transportation, then an apartment or even a mobile home to live in, then get some savings and a good credit score, then buying a smaller home, and eventually upgrading all the way up to that mansion they dreamed of so long ago. Those were all pretty decent jumps of stability and it was still 6 different goals between homelessness and the proud owner of a mansion.
Your goals need to be the same way. Maybe you are struggling to pay your bills while living in an apartment or something similar. Start at something small like decreasing expenses while increasing income. If its only a few dollars, that is progress. Just keep weeding through expenses and brainstorming new forms of income.
Discovering Your Why.
This is an extremely prevalent concept within business minded individuals. I hear a lot of it from all the home based businesses that have started to arise more and more within the past few decades. Why do you need to achieve this goal you have created? Is there someone you are doing all of this for? If it is just for you and your benefit that’s alright as well.
Think on it and jot it down somewhere so you can come back to it regularly. During your journey for improvement, you will be discouraged and lose your motivation. You need something that you can look back at and remind you why you began this anyhow. Mine was to no longer struggle with finances to help with stress, to be able to own my own home, and to be able to provide a better life for my children than I had. Maybe yours is something similar or perhaps its something different, either way it’ll remind you never to give up and to keep trying.
A really good thing to do is to create a vision board. What’s that? It is a poster or something similar with picture or words showing all the things that you are dreaming of having but are out of your grasp at the moment.
Game plan Time
The main thing to be sure that you are doing is to always be improving. Depending on what your goal is depends on what you should be doing to improve. Main thing that most people need to try to work on is that debt to income ratio. If that is you find out how you can lower those debts and expenses. For me that was the fact that I was stopping at fast food restaurants on a daily basis. $5-$10 doesn’t seem to be much at a time but if you look at that for long term it can be a large chunk of money. That is $35-$70 weekly, $150-$300 monthly and even $1825-$3650 each year. What could you do with that yearly total? That was a good bit of money that would have made a world of difference for the struggling family. Cut things like that out. Then find a way to bring in a little extra money. Take away some of those needless expenses and add a little extra income and most people could easily add $500 to their pockets on a monthly basis.
Let’s Get Started
To be successful with your finances, you have to have a game plan. That all starts here, figuring out where you are and where you want to be. I shared about some of my goals, my why, and my game plan.
Now it’s your turn. Let me hear what yours are. What are your goals that you have established and what is your why?
If you have any questions about any of the steps of achieving your goals or how to figure out your game plan, let me know in the comments below. I have lots of experience with this and I am confident that we can find you a solution together.
Patricia Perri 
Leave a comment