Visualizing the Goal

What's the best way to set goals that will help motivate you to achieve your personal financial wants and needs?

Most of us are not strongly motivated by money itself. Before you reject this statement out of hand, think of this: unless you are a coin or currency collector, the thrill of having $5,000,000 in a locked vault would quickly wear off if you couldn't spend it or use it in any way. In much the same way, a purely monetary goal may not be a very powerful motivator. Most of us need to focus on tangible items or tangible benefits.

Despite this statement, some people are motivated by money, are moved to action by the numbers. If you are such a person, you can move right on to the discussion of making the goals measurable.

For most of us, though, one of the first steps in goal setting is finding a concrete goal or goals that motivate us emotionally. How about that classic British racing green '67 Jaguar XKE, the retirement yacht, the ability to cut back the hours you work, or the satisfaction you would gain from setting up and funding your own charitable foundation? Spend a day or two making up a list of the things you've always wanted, and prioritizing them. You'll probably find that you have some short-term goals and some long-term goals.

An example of a short-term goal might be creating a vacation fund to support your vacation plans for the next year. Creating an emergency savings fund to cover short-term expenses that might crop up during a period of weeks or months if your regular cash inflow is cut off should be another short-term goal worth considering. In fact, it's essential to consider this scenario. Examples of long-term goals would include retirement planning and estate planning objectives.

Financial Calculators Use this emergency savings fund calculator to determine how much you should set aside to cover periods during which you have reduced or no income

Whatever it is, make sure these are your goals, not someone else's, or the goals that you think you should want. If you're not honest with yourself about what you really want, when the going gets rough, you will find it harder to have the self-discipline to stick to the plan needed to attain the goal.

Once you have come up with goals that will push you to action, don't let the dream die. If you haven't done so already, do enough research on your goal so that you know it "inside and out." Imagine at least once a day how it would be to have your goal, and how your life would be improved by having it. If the goal can be represented by a picture (such as the Jaguar or the yacht), keep one or more pictures where you're bound to notice them.

Isn't this just "daydreaming?" If you go no further with our suggested goal setting process, these vivid imaginings will be little more than daydreams. To really derive the benefit from the exercise of envisioning your goals, you must move on to making your goals measurable.