REALISTIC GOALS

In the last article in this blog Can I Be Successful? –Believe in Yourself I talked about looking at your long term financial goals and deciding whether they are realistic goals.  Whether you can achieve your goals is not the issue.  Of course you can!  The question is whether you have the ability and/or the willingness to achieve them in the allotted five years.  You may have decided you are not willing to do as much as it will take to accomplish your financial goal in five years.  That is all right.  You have to balance your desire for the achievement of your goals against your willingness to put in the effort.  Or at this point in time you may be lacking either the ability or the courage to climb the mountain to your five year financial goal.  And why do I just talk about your financial goal and ignore all the other goals you have set?  Because your other goals depend on making your financial goal. Most of them require financing if you are going to achieve them.

ADJUSTING YOUR GOALS IS ALL RIGHT!

Crucial first steps are sometimes needed before we can reach for our ultimate goals!

So if you don’t feel that you can reach your financial goal as it currently looks, you have a dilemma.  You have written your five year story so well that you can almost reach out and touch the life you want to be leading at the end of the time frame you have set.  You have also set goals very carefully to allow yourself time to accomplish part of the goals each year.  But you are discouraged because it all just seems too overwhelming.  If that is how you are feeling, it is not necessary to feel badly.   Try to set aside the discouragement and quit beating yourself up.  You have made a conscious and intelligent decision based on what you know about yourself and your environment.  You can change both yourself and your environment but it may take more time than you have allotted.  If you are just not very ambitious, I can’t help you. But I know that probably is not true or you would not be reading this blog.   If you have other weaknesses, you have already learned in earlier articles how to deal with those through spaced repetition, training and education, and practice.  You may have to step out of your comfort zone to improve, but your dreams are worth it.  YOU are worth it.  Let’s face it.  Most people don’t achieve their dreams because they are not willing to do what you are willing to do.  So don’t be discouraged. You can get to where you want to go.  It will just take a little longer than originally planned. In the article “Next Business Step? Success”, the author discusses doing a simple cost/benefit analysis.  Good idea, but make sure you always remember the pot of gold that you are after.  Remember your story. In almost every case adjust your goals, don’t discard them.  

ADJUST EVERYTHING!

Your story is still the same. It might just take a little longer.

You can then look at your one year goals in other areas and adjust them according to the financial condition your financial goal adjustment will leave you in since finances do affect most of your goals.  You can then adjust your two, three, four, and five year goals in all non-financial areas as well.

THE TIMELINE CHANGES — NOT YOUR GOALS!

So what does this do to your five year story?  It changes it, of course.  You will need to rewrite it.  But don’t throw the original story away.  All it does it become your six, seven, eight, nine or ten year story.  You haven’t changed your dreams.  You have just analyzed the progress your determination and your perceived ability combined with your present circumstances will allow you to make.  In other words you have made your dreams more practical.  You have set realistic goals.  This process may even make it EASIER to reach out and touch your dreams despite the fact that they are years further out because you can now more clearly see…and more importantly, BELIEVE IN…the roadmap to get to those dreams.  You see them as something you can actually do.  And if you can achieve your goals THIS year, then you can achieve them next year, and the next, and the next, and so on.  Your dreams really are within your reach, one step at a time.

LIFE HAPPENS!

Another factor to consider when adjusting your goals is the relative importance of different areas of your life at this particular moment in time. Let me explain what I mean by that. At times in all of our lives there are urgent things that are happening. We may be having trouble in our marriage. We may have children who are having problems. We may have a loved one who is ill or we may be grieving over someone who has passed away. You get the idea. These life

When the winds of life blow in an unexpected direction, we have to adjust the sails to stay on course.

experiences are urgent and have to be dealt with. But they are also obstacles to achieving your goals. If you are going to achieve your goals, you will have to find ways to overcome these obstacles, as hard as it may be. I am not being cold and uncaring here about the serious crises in which you may find yourself. But I also don’t want you to abandon your dreams and I don’t think you do, either. You may understandably have to slow progress toward your goals. Sometimes we have to emphasize one facet of life over another. So the financial aspects of your dreams may have to proceed at a slower pace. Don’t completely stop moving forward because it may be very difficult to get started again. But if you have them, those life experiences may be one more factor to consider when adjusting your goals.

VEHICLES!

When you have settled on goals that seem realistic and that you really really believe you can achieve, I know you are clawing at the gate ready to start the race.  But there may be one more challenge.  If you already have a business and  know how to set projections and goals for your business that will be in keeping with your personal financial goals, you are ready for the discussion about six month priorities and daily activities.  But what if you have no vehicle to get you to the end of the rainbow?  If you don’t have a way to create cash flow beyond your current personal income, the next article will describe several possible financial vehicles for you to consider.  You are going to need to find that vehicle so that you can map your direction in the very exciting (and possibly somewhat scary) next year of your life.

I WOULD LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOU!

Let me know about your past successes or failures and whether what you have gotten from this blog so far has changed your thinking in any way or set you on a new path.  If you enjoyed “Realistic Goals — Making Adjustments”, I would like to know.  Please  leave a comment.  I would like to hear from you.  And if you leave your name and email address at the top right corner of this page, I will also send you a notification anytime I update the blog.