Moving forward requires taking a look back, to achieve desired goals. Reflecting on your past victories and failures, is a useful metric to use for monitoring your progress towards the financial goals that you set for yourself. While you may have set goals for various areas of your life; let’s view a simple tool than can be used while reflecting on your 2015 financial goals. Be honest with yourself as you measure your desired goals versus where you are now.
- Make a list of your current goals – This list should ONLY consist of your written goals for 2015. Making a list solidifies your target. If there is no written plan, there is no target. Aiming at nothing guarantees that you will hit that target every time. Dream and set goals, then take action steps to get there.
- Assess the list – For example, if you desired to pay off two of your debts this year; review the current status of those accounts. If you paid off one debt and have a remaining balance on the other, that’s okay. Celebrate!! The important thing is that you took action; at the same time find out what prevented you from meeting your goal and make necessary changes.
- Make adjustments to the list – Adjustments should be made to your list all year. Re-calculate balances once targeted debts have been paid in full.
- Repeat these steps until all of your goals for loan payoffs or savings are complete.
Perhaps you desired to save a certain amount of money for purchasing a home, retirement, purchasing a car, save for a college fund, wedding, vacation or emergency fund. Fill in the blank with whatever your desire was and use the steps above to determine what needs to be done in 2016 to accomplish every goal that you commit to. These simple steps can bring peace and order to a chaotic plan regardless of your socioeconomic status. Remember to take action with your written plan.
Feel free to leave a comment or e-mail at christineroebuck@livemylifedebtfree.com.