Setting and working towards financial goals is vital to maintaining financial stability and independence. When you set realistic goals for yourself and work towards them, you can better manage your finances and plan for the future. So how do you go about setting financial goals? Let’s look at the steps involved in setting financial goals and keeping them.
Set Your Values
Setting values is an essential part of decision-making. Without knowing your values, making decisions that align with what you want in life and how you want to live can be challenging. Values help guide us, give us a sense of direction and purpose, and inform our behavior. By taking the time to understand one's own core values, it becomes easier to make sound financial decisions.
Creating Specific Goals
When creating your financial goals, specificity is key. You should have specific goals in mind that are measurable and actionable. For example, if you want to save more money, decide on an amount you want to save each month or year. If you want to reduce your debt, pick a date you wish to pay it off by. Having clear objectives helps make the process easier because it gives you something tangible to work towards.
Once you have established a specific goal, determine how you will measure progress. This could involve tracking expenses or saving a certain amount each month. It is also important to ensure that your goal is realistic given your current circumstances; if you are trying to save too much too quickly, it may be difficult to stick with it over time. Give yourself a realistic timeline for reaching your desired outcome—this will help keep you accountable and motivated along the way!
Developing a Plan of Action
Once you have determined your goal, create an action plan to work towards it. Start by breaking down the goal into smaller steps (i.e., if you want to save $2000 in six months, divide that up so that each month requires saving $333). Then determine what actions will be necessary to reach each step (i.e., cutting back on expenses or taking on extra hours). Creating this type of plan gives structure and direction to the process of working towards your goal so that it doesn’t seem so daunting or overwhelming.
Staying Motivated
The most important part of staying motivated is having a sense of accountability; this means holding yourself accountable for working towards your goal by tracking progress along the way and checking in with yourself regularly. Additionally, reward yourself when you hit milestones; this reinforces positive behavior and keeps motivation levels high!
Setting financial goals is important to maintaining financial stability and independence, but it can be difficult to stay motivated throughout the process if certain strategies aren't employed beforehand. By creating specific objectives that are measurable and actionable, developing an action plan for reaching those objectives, and staying accountable along the way through tracking progress and rewarding yourself for milestones—you can move closer to your financial goals! With these tips in mind, start setting financial goals today.
If you have questions about our values-based financial planning process and how we help you identify your priorities and foundation for your financial goals, please reach out and let us know. We are confident we can help people better prepare for the future and are committed to helping fuel your climb to financial excellence.
If you’re interested in learning more about what matters most to you, use these interaction Values Cards to define what you value and set the stage for behaviors and pursuance more closely aligned with your ideal self: https://www.think2perform.com/values/#start