Page 17 - Workbook2E

Develop Your Roadmap For Success
Secrets to Making Goals
Without clearly defined goals, your roadmap to financial freedom will not be clear enough to follow. Specific goals guide you from landmark to landmark so you’ll know where your efforts are leading you. Then you’ll have successes to celebrate all along the way—sustaining your motivation and encouraging you toward greater financial fitness. It’s just like plans for winning the matches are needed to claim victory over the entire tournament!
Basics of Goal Setting:
When setting your goals, keep these basic principles in mind:
1. Goals must be in writing. Goals not written down are merely dreams or wishes, and easily forgotten. Put your goals in writing and update them if they change and grow. Writing down a goal makes it real.
2. Goals have to be your own. If you’re only persuaded to make a goal—and you don’t fully adopt it yourself—it will lack the power of true commitment. Like the commitments you’ve made to yourself
at the end of each workbook section, if you don’t embrace and own them, you’ll likely find yourself sidetracked or stalled on your path to financial freedom. Make goals you honestly believe in, and you’ll find yourself more motivated and less frustrated as you work to achieve them.
3. Goals must benefit you. Goals must have a real benefit for you or your family. If goals are only for fleeting enjoyment or acclaim—you’re likely to lose interest if the going gets tough. Goals must have real value or mark a positive step or improvement. Then the journey feels worthwhile and continues to motivate you.
4. Goals need to allow for change. Goals need to be flexible, allowing you to fine-tune them or reach even further. Just like in the story of Judy and Robert, your priorities may change or become clearer as you progress farther down your path. As this happens, be ready to make course adjustments and recommit yourself in writing to your newly fine-tuned goal.
5. Goals need deadlines. Without a deadline, you really don’t have a goal. If your journey has no planned “time of arrival,” what are you aiming for? If you do need to adjust your deadline as difficulties arise, be sure to commit yourself to a new one. Without a deadline, you may wander off track or lack the momentum to ever accomplish what you’ve set out to do. It brings a great sense of accomplishment to achieve your goal on time or even early!
“It’s not enough to
take steps which may some day lead to a goal; each step must be itself a goal and a step likewise.”
~ Johann von Goethe
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