3 Steps to Creating Concrete Financial Goals

You’re constantly falling off the bandwagon when it comes to reaching your financial goals. They seem so big that you’ll never reach them, and you just can’t remain focused.

Sound familiar?

Over the past couple months, I haven’t been my usual highly-motivated self. Instead of working ahead and paying attention to my bottom line, I’ve been slacking. Recently, I realized why.

These last two months of chaos have lacked structured goals, so I’m essentially wandering aimlessly in the dark. The good news?  My two months of zero progress have reinforced my belief that setting financial goals is vital to success.

If you’re new to setting financial goals, here are three tips that will help:

1. Figure out what you really want

Sometimes, the hardest part of setting goals is figuring out what you really want. It just depends on your situation.

For example, at the beginning of the year, I set a number of financial goals for myself (too many, to be honest). And since none of these goals really excited me, I wasn’t motivated to work toward any of them.

When you set your financial goals, be sure you’re choosing something that has meaning for you. What financial goal could you work on that would change your life? What could help you build a better life?

Also, be sure to pick only a couple financial goals to work on at a time. If you spread yourself too thin, you’ll have a hard time remaining focused.

2. Be extremely specific

Once you narrow down the goals you want to achieve, you should break them down into smaller steps. Saying you want to save $10,000 dollars might be a good goal — but you’re not going to get there unless you break the goal down into smaller chunks. Instead, you could make a goal to save $192 a week, or $385 every two weeks.

By breaking down your financial goals into weekly or biweekly steps, you’ll have a far greater chance of success.

3. Set time limits

Putting time limits on your goals will give you that extra motivation to reach them.

Say, for example, you have an extra $500/month, and you want to save $5,000 for a new-to-you car this year. If you stay on budget, you know you’ll be able to accomplish this in ten months. By assigning a specific date to your goal, you’ll feel more motivated to work toward it.

Conclusion

Goals will lead to you success. Start by figuring out what matters most to you. Block everyone else out, and concentrate on what you want your life to look like. Once you have a couple goals picked out, break them down into smaller pieces and assign a time limit.

Once you get the goal-setting process figured out, you’ll be surprised at just how much you can achieve!

What are your best tips for setting financial goals?

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