What are your financial goals for this year? Where do you want to be financially in 5 years? How about in 10 years? 

Thinking about saving for that vacation? Or paying off your debt? Or coming up with a retirement plan? 

how to set and achieve any financial goal

Financial goals seem challenging to achieve for many people. Here are some simple steps to set and achieve any financial goal: 

  1. Identify a dream or a goal.
  2. Break down the goal into smaller tasks.
  3. Work hard at it!
  4. Automate where possible. 

Step 1. The Dream/Goal

Let’s say you have a dream to own a home in 1 year. 

Your goal needs to be specific and timely for you to be successful. 

For example, identify the exact amount of money required for the downpayment(e.g. $18,000) and when it will be needed (in 1 year).

Step 2. Break Down the Goal

Successful people break down big goals into small, bite-sized steps.

Let’s break down our goal–which requires 1 year–into monthly goals. Saving $1500 every single month with no exception will get you to $18,000 in 12 months. 

Step 3. Work Hard at it!

We all dream, but what sets dreamers apart from achievers is action. Hard work is necessary, not optional, to achieving anything in life. In this case, you need an extra $1500 each month. 

There are two ways you can go about this:

  1. Save more: reduce unnecessary expenses.
  2. Earn more: work harder to increase your income.

Step 4. Automate where possible

The success of your goals depends on your consistency in performing the broken-down tasks. Sticking to a savings plan is not easy. You would require a lot of discipline to avoid temptations to spend all your money. 

Studies have shown that willpower is unreliable and doesn’t always work. This is because, as human beings, we reactively respond to whatever is currently in our environment.

The best strategy to sticking to a savings plan is to automate it. Automating makes sure that transferring money to your savings account on every payday is automagically done for you. So before you spend a dime from your paycheck, your savings are already sorted. 

Summary

Having a clear, specific, and timely goal is the best strategy to catapult you to action. 

Breaking the goal down into daily or monthly tasks will make the goal seem easy and achievable. 

Sticking to these daily or monthly tasks can be challenging. However, there are tools and systems built to automate some tasks like saving. 

No matter the financial goal, if you follow the above steps, you’ll be well on your way to achieving it. 


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