Defining Your Financial Goals

Have you had trouble getting your money to work for you? All the financial advisors tell you that money has to work for you to grow, but no matter what you do, you just can’t get it to work.


The following are some simple suggestions to help you gain an understanding of your money, what it needs to do and how to take the first steps to make it work for you. This article is not a step-by-step guide for saving or investing, it is a simple guideline to get you in the right mind-set with your money.

What Money Can and Can’t Do.
Money can pay for an education, pay for nice cars, homes, fund vacations, and sporting events. Money cannot buy love, friendship, peace, happiness or knowledge. It can fund the education but cannot buy the knowledge and plant it into your mind. Money cannot buy your values or self-esteem. But money is directly related to your values and your self-esteem. It has been said that, “the love of money is the root of all evil.” This is simply not true. It’s the greed that leads to evil-doing of men. You can love and respect money without being greedy. You can have the mind-set of drawing money to you without being greedy. You have to understand money to make it work. Money is a living entity that needs attention just as much as a child does.

You need to be clear about what you want out of your money and be as specific as possible.

Things to consider are:

What’s important to you? Giving your children a good education? Having a nice home and car? Paying the bills on time and having money left over?

What makes you happy? Giving your family nice things? Taking a nice vacation every year? Security?

How much money do you want to have? Do you want to retire with an abundance of money? Do you want a lot of investments?
How do you want to spend that money? Cars, boats, summer beach house? Dining in fine restaurants? Home electronics?
What do you want to contribute with your money? Do you want to give to charity?
When you answer these questions you will be revealing your values and ambitions. These need to be clear and precise. Obstacles may slow you down but, once you have direction and purpose, you will be able to overcome
those obstacles and move forward.

You need focused direction to give it power. If your direction is not focused it will not have the power it needs to make your money work for you.

Define your priorities for your financial goals.
Financial success comes from making your money work. This is the basic foundation of all wealthy people. They have learned how to make their money work for them thus resulting in a strong financial foundation.

If you do not set financial priorities you will not increase your net worth. Setting aside money is always the best bet. Saving money should be treated like any other bill. Sometimes this is difficult when the only person holding you accountable for this “payment” is yourself. No collector will call, there will be no late charges deducted from your savings if you don’t pay it on time. But the end result will be not having enough money for retirement. In a sense, not planning for retirement will be like tons of late fees being heaped on you at once, because there won't be any money set aside when you retire.

Know what you want to attain with your money.
Never allow circumstances to direct your spending habits. You have to be in charge of your money to make it work for you. Money is like anything else, if it doesn’t have an objective it will be used on whatever comes along. You need financial goals in place to avoid watching your money go out the window. If you walk into a store without a plan of which items to buy and the amount of money you want to spend, you will end up with a lot of frivolous purchases that waste your money.

At first you may need to keep track of every penny until you realize just where your money goes. One trip to a convenience store can cost you well over $5. If you stop at the convenience store several times a week, you could be looking at the amount of money needed each week for your retirement plans.

Time and consistency are very important for financial wealth. Time will help compensate for not having much extra money to put back. A little put back over a larger time frame works to your advantage.
You increase your options, your confidence and your security by saving and investing more when you are young. The sooner you start getting your financial goals in order and working towards them, the more time you will
have working on your side. Putting time to work is just as important as putting your money to work.

Be specific when lining out your goals. Vague goals are hard to stick with. Clear and concise goals lead you to committed action. Writing out your goals in a specific manner also helps you see them more objectively.

You should refine your goals at least three times in the beginning. This allows you to be more specific each time you write them. Your first goal may be “I want to be wealthy.” While this is a good goal it needs to be more specific. Ask yourself what wealth means to you. Does it mean a large bank account or a lot of investments? Does it mean owning your own company or going on extravagant vacations? The more specific you are, the more you are able to work for your goals.

Think about the goals you've just written down and define them further. Don’t simply say “I want to be wealthy.” Give your goals a purpose and be as specific as you can, “I want to retire early or I want to own my own company.”

For the third phase, write your goals as they will be when accomplished. Get it down to the nitty gritty. An example is: “I own a three bedroom home with a swimming pool. It is in a wealthy neighborhood. My savings are worth $100,000. I accomplished this by saving X amount of dollars each week over a period of X years.”

Take the time to clearly define your goals. Write them as if you have already reached them. Being specific and writing goals as if they have already happened will set them into motion and make them more concrete.

Your next step will be to think ahead about the conflicts and obstacles you will face in reaching your goals. Decide what your highest priorities will be and focus on those. It’s also a safe measure to put a little back for unseen emergencies as well. There will be times when your second or third priorities have to take a back seat for a little while. Expect this and plan for it so you won’t be devastated when it happens. Making your money work for you is an assurance that those priorities are only put on hold for a little while.
Devising a plan of action.
Give each specific goal a plan of action. This needs to be worked out step by step so that you’ll know what it will take to reach each goal. Some financial advisors suggest it’s easier to determine how to attain your goals than it is to define them. You should decide how much money needs to be put back each week or month to reach the amount you want at retirement. Decide where and how you will invest some of your money taking the risks, rewards and earnings of each investment into consideration. This is an important step in coming up with your plan of action.

You should reassess your goals often so you’ll know whether you are on track or not. It will also help in case some of your goals change at a later date. If something doesn’t work out, use that as a way to learn what went wrong.

Always concentrate more on your accomplishments than your failures. Failures are merely tests of determination. If you are making progress you will face adversity. Something will always come up. Adversity contains the seeds of hope that we need to carry out our plans.