Setting personal finance goals is a beneficial tool that can be used as motivation to get you to where you want to be financially. Creating goals can be difficult, sometimes we can be too broad with our goals, sometimes we set our goals too high that we fail before we even begin. If done correctly goal setting can be very useful for ones success. Similar to most people, Gina and I set goals for ourselves every new year, our goals tend to focus on personal growth, financial growth, health/wellness and travel.

For example some of our goals this year include: read at least 1 book each month, create 2 streams of passive income, workout at least 4 times every week, and travel to Norway for a 10 day trip. These are just a handful of the goals that we have created that help us stay driven and focused.

#1. Know Yourself

Personal finance is just that, personal. That being said it is important to reflect on your own financial situation and understand where you are and where you want to be. I like to call this getting from point A to point B. If you don’t know where your starting from, how can you plan to get to where you want to be.

First step, find your starting point (point A) and then think about what is a realistic point B over the course of say a year. Personally, I like to set goals for myself that span over a year and then I break that goal down into smaller goals, kind of like checkpoints. For example, I want to read at least 12 books over the course of a year, I can break this down to reading at least 1 book per month. Every month when I start a new book I take the total pages and I divide it by the number of days in the month. This will show me how many pages that I need to be reading each day in order for me to stay on track. This same method can be used with financial goals as well, for instance if your goal is to save $12,000 over the year then you can break that down to saving $1,000 a month. You then can divide $1,000/ # of days in the month to get the dollar value that you need to be saving each day of the month so that you meet your goal.

It’s important that your financial goals are realistic yet challenging. When deciding on your financial goals you want to be sure that they are both attainable & measurable.

#2. Measure

Setting a goal that is measurable is crucial to your overall success in achieving that goal. By setting goals that can be measured you create a system that keeps you in check. An example of a good measurable goal is to have no more than 5 monetary transactions within the span of a 7 day week. This goal is measurable in two ways, both the quantity of transactions and the time frame in which to complete it. An example of a bad goal would be, have less transactions over a week. This goal lacks clarity and measurability, you can see how easy it would be to not be successful with this goal.

By creating specific measurements in your financial goals you will be able to keep track of your progress and be able to adjust accordingly if needed. After you have decided on financial goals that are true to yourself and you have written them down in a clear, concise, and measurable way it is now time to hold yourself accountable so that you meet your goals.

#3. Accountability

Holding yourself accountable can be very difficult and can take a lot of discipline. I recommend finding yourself an accountability partner. It can be your spouse, significant other, best friend, sibling, parent, whoever it is just make sure that they will be pushing you to meet your goals. Gina and I are each others accountability partners and we make sure that we are both doing what we say we are going to do. I’ll be the first one to tell you that I am not as disciplined as I should be. I love playing video games and watching new movies/shows on netflix, but deep down I know that in order for me to meet my goals I’ll need to be disciplined and focused. Discipline takes practice and habits can be hard to break, literally before I wrote this post I was watching Netflix and my accountability partner called me out on it. She said “didn’t you tell me that you wanted to finish that post tonight.” That’s all I needed to hear, she was right I did say that but I was distracting myself and thus holding myself back from completing my goals.

Accountability partners work both ways, they push you and you push them. Find someone like you who is motivated and wants to succeed. This person will help you immensely and help you become the person you want to be.

Closing Thoughts

There you have it 3 tips that will help you achieve your financial goals and nonfinancial goals. Be honest with yourself, create measurable goals, and find your self an accountability partner. Stay focused, stay disciplined, and stay away from distractions that will only prevent you from reaching your goals.

Please feel free to comment and share with us your thoughts, we love to hear from our readers!