Determining Your Goals

Jul 6

Do you know what you want? What are your goals? Where do you want to be and what do you want to accomplish? What are the differences between dreams and goals? Are they all the same thing and is one attainable (the goal) and one not (the dream)? Asking these questions can be very overwhelming.

In my teens and twenties, I knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted to study fashion and over ten years I finished fashion school, graduated from art college, won scholarships, showed my art in galleries, had my own business, and worked on prestigious theatre and film productions. I had lofty intentions and had achieved them, however somewhere along the way I stopped setting any deliberate goals for myself. I stopped moving forward and life became stagnant without any plan or purpose. For fifteen years I stopped daring to dream or set goals for myself because I was just trying to survive.

Not setting any goals gave me permission to be impulsive and do and buy whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, whether I had the money or not. It also enabled me to live in complete chaos with no direction.

In that moment when I received my mortgage renewal documents and had to look at the actual numbers I was in debt to, and finally came face to face with my truth. I was lost and going nowhere because I hadn’t set a goal to be anywhere. When that moment of change happened for me, I realized I had been riding a tilt a whirl for years! It was complete chaos, and I was financially and mentally jerking around and spinning out of control. My mortgage was going to be ongoing forever and ever as I hadn’t created a goal to have it gone. My career was stagnant and going nowhere, my relationships had gone nowhere, my salary was going nowhere, my life was going nowhere, my hobbies were going nowhere. I was actually in no man’s land.

Setting financial goals, personal goals, career goals, family goals, travel goals and retirement goals helped me to work towards being intentional in my life again. Whatever your goals are write them down and give life to them. Create a plan of goals over the next five to twenty-five years to help give your life some direction and move towards what makes you happy and brings you peace. If you have a map to nowhere you will go nowhere. The Laws of Attraction and envisioning your goals can be very powerful visualizations. A goal of mine when I envisioned this blog was to actually start it and work on it intentionally. My biggest goal was to be debt free by age fifty-two and although it didn’t happen until I turned 53, I am confident that if I hadn’t set those goals they never would have happened.

As you get more experienced and comfortable with declaring and working towards what you want, you can monitor your goals to ensure you are on track. Each month or every six months, review them and measure and adjust your actions accordingly. These goals are going to be different for all of us and allow them to evolve over time.

There could be two sets of goals for you such as Necessary goals:

· Be debt free of $___________debt that I have by age ___.

· Being mortgage free of $___________by age_____ (number should be age 65 or less).

· Have six months emergency funds (3-6 months of expenses) of $___________saved by this date___________.

· Have an updated will and power of attorney by this date__________ at a cost of $____.

· Have adequate life insurance in place of $__________ or have enough money saved to be self-insured by this date________________ which will cost $_________________.

· Having a measured amount of money of $__________saved by this date___________ for retirement which will give me $___________________/month to live each month.

There may also be other life goals that include:

· Getting a better paying job of_____________, which will pay me $_______________, or working towards a promotion by this date ______________________,

· Starting a hobby or sport of _________________ by this date __________________ and I will need to ___________________________to bring it to life,

· Taking a vacation to _____________, which will cost, _______________by this date ___________________,

· Home renovations of_______________ which will cost me $____________by this date______________________,

· Having a measured amount saved by this date _________________ to help a child or grandchild to help with their education needs of $______________ to go to __________________.

The primary purpose of this blog, focuses on working towards the accomplishment of:

1. Taking responsibility for where you are,

2. Determining your goals,

3. Determining your net worth and establishing a starting place,

4. Creating a plan to have all of your debt paid off (not including your mortgage) preferably within five years or less,

5. Saving the equivalent of three to six months of expenses within five years or less,

6. Having a plan to be mortgage free as soon as possible or by no later than age 65, and

7. Eventually visit with a financial planner to create a retirement plan and start saving for retirement.

You may add additional goals and make your list as long as your goals are. Not all of your goals should be about money. Maybe one is to visit a friend or family member you haven’t seen in a while or start a new sport or hobby. Don’t exclude goals that might seem unattainable. Create a dream board for yourself on a bulletin board, Bristol board or Pinterest, or create several dream boards. What does your life look like next year, in 5, 10 or 20 years? What does your retirement look like? What do you want to do accomplish before retirement and in retirement? What inspires you and makes you happy?

For a goal to be valid it must answer the who, what, when, why and when. It should be descriptive and detailed and not a wishy-washy idea. Of course they can start out that way but develop them into something real.

· Have a declaration of what the goal is,

· Have a value of either how much the goal will cost or what it will take to achieve, and

· Have a date of when you hope to achieve the goal.

Never lose sight of your goals and don’t go through the rest of your life not having any. Keep them close to your heart at all times. It can be very difficult to even write down a goal and imagine your dreams. I went through life for decades too scared to even dare to imagine my goals, in fact I had buried them deep, so I fully appreciate how difficult completion of this process might be. I see this practice as never being finished, and for me this is a constant work in progress that I visit on a monthly basis. Your goals may change or evolve over the years. By writing your goals down and actually declaring them in black and white it will give them life and will create something for you to work towards attaining. As part of this process, we will embed your goals that need funding into your finances through sinking funds (discussed later).

I have tried below to break these goals down by type and by time, but you may break them down as you wish. You may not have a goal for every category, and you don’t have to. Fill them in over a period of time as you are able to. I have also found it immensely useful to carry a day timer with me jotting down what I want to accomplish each day. Taking notes on what I did, big or small, towards accomplishing my goals. What was productive and healthy and brought me joy today and what am I going to do tomorrow to continue to get closer to those goals.

Financial Goals

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Personal goals

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Career goals

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Family goals,

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Travel goals

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Retirement goals

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Emergency Savings goals

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Health Goals

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Annual Goal Review

The worst plan you can have, is to have no plan.

End of year goal: ______________________________________________________________________________

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1yr goal:

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5yr goals:

10 year goals:

15 year goals:

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25 year goals:

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Emily Mason

Determining Your Goals

Determining Your Net Worth And Establishing A Starting Place

Working as a Financial Advisor