Establishing Financial Goals, part 2
January 11th, 2008 | by Molly's Brother |Last week, we explored the importance of setting life-changing goals, rather than setting yet another New Year Resolution. Of all the different aspects that lead to achieving your goals, the single most important step is to establish clear tasks that relate to each objective. An important component of this is to create tasks and objectives that are small and attainable.
Small, Attainable Objectives
Goals are achieved in much the same way that houses are built: brick by brick by brick. You will reach your goals by following a step-by-step plan. If you are overweight and out of shape, and your 2008 goal is to run a marathon, you are not going to go out and enter a race next week. This could be detrimental to your health or at least incredibly hard on your body! Instead, you will develop a workout plan with weekly endurance goals that you need to attain.
The same applies to the financial goals that you have established. If you want to eliminate all $10,000 of your credit card debt, you will not be able to do so overnight. However, by setting small, attainable goals you will be able to see that debt disappear over time.
Using last week’s example, you might realize that you can only eliminate $4,000 of the debt this year (which is still fantastic!). In exploring what that means, you realize that you only have to find a way to make an extra $40/week! That’s one dinner out with your loved one or one night of debauchery with friends. By boiling down such insurmountable goals to small, action oriented tasks, you will be amazed at how quickly you can achieve your goals.
