It’s not easy to make a decision to change your finances. Well, I might be wrong – the decision to do so might actually be the easy part. The issue comes a little while down the road when we recognize that it’s harder than we expected, and suddenly, it looks like a better idea to simply give up and go back to the way things were.

You’ve been there, right?

Okay, perhaps it wasn’t directly related to your finances. Maybe you started a diet, and after a couple of weeks (or hours) decided it really wasn’t worth giving up that chocolate cake just to lose a few pounds. We all know what it looks like to want something better for ourselves, and yet, not know how to achieve it without great frustration.

Don’t worry – if you are dreaming of making a change for the better in your life, especially related to finances, this series may be exactly the motivation you need.

Tip: Grab my FREE Personal Goals Worksheet. Find it HERE.

How to Make Goals for Financial Success

We can’t delve into the basics of family finance without first looking at why we even care about our finances to begin with. To do so, I’ve designed this series with the purpose of looking at our goals in an effort to cement a successful plan for our financial (and personal) futures.

Personal Goals

If you are going to be successful at something that will require a sacrifice of you, it’s imperative that you have goals.

Sure, you might roll your eyes a little right now because “of course you have goals”. Trust me, I know exactly how you feel.

A big turning point in my life and the life of my family was a simple question I was asked to answer: what were my personal (and professional) goals? I shared the story in a previous post (you can find it HERE), but what you don’t know is that one question changed the entire trajectory of our family life.

Personal goals? I had personal goals – didn’t I?

Actually, after sitting down with a blank piece of paper, I realized I didn’t even know what a personal goal was anymore. Sure, Justin and I had some family goals – mostly centered around making sure the girls’ graduate high school – but “just me” goals?

None came to mind. In fact, there were a lot of sleepless nights involved as I wondered why it was so hard to decide on even one goal. Had I really become that dull?

What is a goal?

When you look up “goal” in the Google dictionary, the definition (outside of sports terminology) is:

“the object of a person’s ambition or effort; an aim or desired result”.

In simple terms: a goal is something you want to achieve in the future.

In the case of personal goals, that could include finding a job you like, reading one book per month, spending more time with family, or anything else you could dream of. For me, my one goal that was entirely personal came down to starting this blog. I didn’t know how, or when, I just knew that’s what I wanted to do.

That was my goal.

What’s your goal?

I know it might seem weird that we haven’t even touched on financial goals, but if you stick with me over the series, you’ll recognize exactly how important those personal goals are to the financial ones.

If you are hoping to make a change in your financial (or personal) situation going forward, I’d love for you to do the following before you move on to Part 2. Trust me, it’ll be worth it!

• Make a list of your personal and professional goals. You don’t have to know how you will accomplish them at this time, just list the goals you have for your future.
• Make a list of your goals for your family. Once again, it’s not important to know how you will accomplish them at this time.
• For married couples: have your spouse complete both steps one and two without seeing your answers. Compare notes with one another, looking for overlap when it comes to personal and family goals.
• Combine your list of family goals to the best of your ability.

Before moving on to Part 2 (you can find it HERE), do you mind dropping one of your goals into the comment section below? I’d love to know what’s exciting to you about the future.

Tip: Grab my FREE Personal Goals Worksheet. Find it HERE.