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Having personal financial goals is important for everyone – after all, in today’s capitalist society financial
security is required for our very survival, not to mention allowing us to live in the level of comfort we desire.
Not having enough money can be a cause of great stress, unhappiness and family arguments.
But strangely enough,
having TOO much money is also a cause of unhappiness – the endless pursuit of fame and fortune has been the downfall
of many ‘high-flyers’, particularly if ethics and morals are compromised in this pursuit.
Read this
‘warning on consumerism’ to find out more…
So the most important part of setting financial goals is to know exactly HOW MUCH
money is enough for you and your family, what you want to achieve with your finances and then you can go about setting your
financial goals to achieve this.
How much is enough? Well it depends on your lifestyle, but studies indicate that
an average family income of $100,000 is enough. Is this enough for YOUR lifestyle?
But whether you are making
the right amount of money, not enough or too much – what you actually DO with your money can have a big impact on your
lifestyle. Someone with a well-managed budget can end up with a better lifestyle than someone on a higher income that doesn’t
use money wisely.
So the key to having successful financial goals is to know how to MANAGE your money, not just
how to earn it.
Setting SMARTER Goals
You may have heard of SMART Goals, but our sister
site Achieve Goal Setting Success promotes the use of SMARTER Goals.
SMARTER (and SMART) is just an acronym to describe the characteristics of
an effective goal, and you need to have effective goals in order to achieve them. So SMARTER financial goals are: - Specific
– what exactly are you trying to achieve? A goal to “get rich” is not specific enough – how do you
know when you’re ‘rich’ and have achieved your goal? A specific goal is along the lines of “to save
$10,000 for a house deposit” or “to earn a $100,000 salary”.
- Measurable, so you
can measure your progress against the goal; Meaningful and Motivational – your goal
should be exciting to you, so keep your goals personal and meaningful. There’s no point having a goal to earn $100,000
if you don’t know why you want to earn $100,000.
- Actionable – you need to be able to
take meaningful steps towards your goal by preparing an action plan that is achievable.
- Realistic
– a goal to win the lottery next week just isn’t realistic!! A goal to save $10,000 in 12 months IS realistic,
if you prepare and implement a plan of action to achieve it.
- Ttime-based – set a deadline for
your goals, otherwise you’ll never achieve them.
- Eethical, enjoyable and exciting – self-explanatory!
- Rresourced
– you need to have access to the resources to enable you to complete your goals. Resources could be support, information,
training or investment capital.
Achieve Goal Setting Success provides all the information and tools you need to be able to set and achieve successful goals, including SMARTER goal and
action plan templates.
Financial goals could be short term goals, such as saving for a special holiday or a house
deposit – or long term goals, such as owning your own home or developing a multi-million dollar business. But whatever
your goals are, the process of setting and achieving them is the same.
And get your family involved too –
particularly your kids. Managing personal finances and setting financial goals is an important life skill for everyone.
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