SETTING GOALS

Rule of Thumb

Without a road map, you cannot reach your destination.

Every individual and family have different plans for the future. Think what you want for yourself and your family in the short term. What about the long term. If you are like most people, some of these wants will involve money. You will need money to buy a new car, pay for home improvements, send your child or children to college, and pay for additional education for yourself.

Many people feel that their life is out of control and to pay for the above items is a difficult thing to achieve. How would you like for your life to be different and achieve many of the things that you want out of life to become a reality?

A very useful tool to achieve needs is called goals.

The process of determining where you want to go in life and knowing how to achieve it is part of goal setting.

After you begin working on your goals you may find that they are no longer what you want, and so reset your goals to meet new needs and desires. 

 Setting goals is a powerful process for thinking through your ideal future and finding ways to your vision into reality. It will help you turn your dreams and desires for the future into something solid that you know how to achieve.

Setting and keeping goals is a very hard task. Many of the people that I have worked with over the past 20 years are very good about setting up the goals, but have a very hard time keeping them. If you remember, in an earlier part of my Blog, I said that everything in life is work and you must stay focused on what you are doing and don’t expect instant gratification.

Setting goals helps you:

·        Work toward making your future better;

·        Prioritize how you spend your money so that it goes toward things that really matter to you ; (always remember you earned the money and it is under your control, do not let anyone take money away from you unless you completely agree to allow this to happen);

·        Measure and track your progress toward getting the things you want out of life;

·        Take pride in bettering your life and the lives of your children,

You may set any time line that you want to achieve your goals:

·        Short term goals- usually 6-7 months in duration.

·        Medium term goals: usually 1.5 to 2 years in duration.

·        Long tern goals: may last for the rest of your life.

 

WHEN YOU SET UP YOUR GOALS, THE FOLLOWING WILL HELP YOU IN DESIGNING THEM:

1.   Specific—Who? What? Why?

2.   Measureable—how much? How will I know if it is done?

3.   Able to Reach—how will I do this? Is this a goal that I can actually reach?

4.   Important to me—is this something that I really want? Is now the right time to do this?

5.   Time — when do you want to reach this goal? In 3months, 6months ,

 a year, 5 years?

Now let’s put this all together. As we progress through the Blog, I will bring up subjects that will probably help with your goals. This is one of the hardest issues that you will come across in your personal finance, GOOD LUCK!!!!!

Next chapter in my Blog will discuss Banks and Credit Unions.