By: Christine Addis
Setting goals can sometimes seem like a lesson in frustration and when I meet people for the first time they sometimes can’t see the way to their dreams because their everyday has become so overwhelming.
You will often hear children talk about what they want to do when they grow up or ideas of where they will go and what they will achieve and the excitement that accompanies their declarations is very contagious. Have you ever wondered what happens to those dreams? Where did those dreams go that you once dreamed of?
Simply put – what happens is life!
Disappointments, failure, other people pulling us down are some of the most significant things that stop us dreaming but another reason we fail to achieve the dreams in our heart is our lack of ability to set goals.
I fully support that goals should be written down. I read somewhere that they should also be S.M.A.R.T which means they should be:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Time Bound
Antoine de Saint Exupery said, ” A goal without a plan is just a wish” – and I think that is what most of us have fallen prey to a times – wishful thinking instead of goal setting. So I thought I would give you a lesson in goal setting.
Let’s say that I wanted to be able to take my family on a holiday to the snow in July – this would be my process.
- Find out the price of the holiday
- Work out how many pay days I have between now and July
- Divide the amount I need to save across the pay days
- Set up a plan that I can “measure” my progress against e.g. by a certain date how much should I have (try and set this up in 3 monthly time slots – so if we are using the snow trip for this example – what do I need to have by the end of February/May?)
By doing this you can easily work out how much you need to save and what that will mean to your everyday spending. You may need to address your everyday spending in order to make saving possible. So…..
- Will you have to reduce spending in an area to meet your goal
- Will you have to sell something
- Will you have to earn some more money – so will that mean taking an extra job?
All of these questions and more, start to surface and they do need answering if you are going to move towards attaining a goal that previously was just wishful thinking.
It takes effort, commitment and accountability to achieve a goal – do you have what it takes?
Article supplied with thanks to Coach Chris
About the Author: Chris is a financial coach with a vision for helping people get “their money into great shape” no matter what their income.