Are you a procrastinator?  The person with great ideas and great intentions, but no execution when life gets in the way?  Ummmm, ya, me too! This is especially true when it comes to financial goals.

Financial goal setting sounds super boring, but it really is one of the most important things you should be doing.  Whether you are just starting to budget, trying to pay off debt or build wealth, you need to know where you see yourself by next year.

I used to be one of those people who said, “I’m going to pay off debt this year.  That is my goal.” But soon, I realized that if I just had a general goal of paying off debt, I didn’t really know what it meant?  What was I actually trying to accomplish?

Would paying off $10 of debt be as rewarding as $1,000?  Heck no! If you want to make financial progress in your life, you need to be setting specific financial goals.

5 Reasons You Need to Be Setting Specific Financial Goals if You Want to Go Somewhere in Life:

1.  Your goal will come to life.

Setting specific financial goals will make your goal real.  When you decide on a specific goal it becomes an expectation for the year that you are either going to meet or fall short of.  This adds a sense of pressure that will kick you into high gear to start working toward achieving your goal.

If you just say, “I’m going to do better with my money this year,” you don’t even know what that means.  It’s a completely safe way to ensure you meet your goal. When you set a specific goal of, “I’m going to do a handwritten budget every month this year,” that is something you will know without a doubt if you are doing it or not.

See the difference?

You have to set a specific goal to make it real to you.  If you set a generic and very broad goal, it gives you a false sense of accomplishment when you aren’t making any real progress.  It’s like the cheater’s way to set goals that they are guaranteed to achieve.

Don’t lie to yourself.  Set a specific goal that will actually set you on the path to improving your finances.

2.  You will be motivated to make a plan.

When you set a specific goal, your brain will instantly be thinking, “okay, how am I going to accomplish this?”  This will require you to take a minute and figure out how you can be where you want to be in the next 12 months.

What is it going to take to actually accomplish your goal in the next 12 months?  If you have a goal to save $15,000 for a down payment on a house over the next year, you need to figure out what you should do every month to accomplish your goal.

Are you going to be starting from the beginning and just working on using a budget all year?

Are you going to start tackling your debt this year?  You need a plan to get started!

Whatever your specific goal is, take the time to break it down month by month.  Then determine what you need to do every week to accomplish what you need to each month.  If you take your big goal and break it down to monthly goals and then weekly goals, nothing will stop you!

3.  You will have a focus when you face challenges.

Goal setting is such an amazing thing that typically we are super into in the beginning.  Then as time goes on, our enthusiasm just kind of fades out. This is fairly typical for all of us.

We all know the gyms are crazy crowded in January and then by March, back to the normal workout crowd.  After the first 30-60 days, people’s motivation has been lost and they are back to living how they did before.

The same thing can happen to your financial goals when you make them really vague.  The more specific you get, the more measurable they are and the more likely you are to stay focused from month to month.

Instead of getting lost in June about trying to pay off debt this year, you will be focused on putting $500 toward debt in that month.  You will be working toward very specific goals that will keep you focused all year long.

Distractions, challenges, and choices will come at you all year long.  They will be much easier to overcome when you know exactly what you are working for….down to the dollar amount.

4.  You will be held accountable.

Setting specific financial goals and writing them down will be an immediate form of accountability for you.

According to a psychology study performed at Dominican University in California, you are 42% more likely to achieve your goals when you write them down.  This increases, even more, when you share your goals with a friend.

There is power in writing down your goals.  Having your specific financial goals on paper in front of you will hold you accountable.  You will be that much more likely to actually do everything you set out to do.

5.  You will know what to celebrate.

After the year is over, you will be able to look back and know what you have accomplished.  Setting specific goals will let you check them off as you achieve them. You will know exactly what you have done and if it was what you intended to do.  

Again, if you had said, I want to eat healthier this year.  Would be happy with yourself at the end of the year if you have only had 4 pops a day instead of 5?  Or only had dessert once a day instead of twice? What were your goals?

Vs.  Your goal was to have one meal replacement shake per day instead of lunch.  This is a specific goal and you would know if you had 365 meal replacement shakes during the year or not.

Knowing exactly what your goal was, makes it measurable so you can celebrate your achievement.

If you are ready to move forward in your financial life to achieve all your dreams, you need to set specific financial goals.  You can start right now!  It doesn’t have to be January to do this.  You can start any time and set goals from your Day 1 to your Day 365.  No excuses!

Start today using our FREE Specific Financial Goal Setting Worksheet, when you sign up below!

PIN FOR LATER!