“Many people fail in life, not for lack of ability or brains or even courage but simply because they have never organized their energies around a goal.”

- Elbert Hubbard

I started this blog with a set of clear goals. Everything in life is about setting goals and achieving them. Without them we may lack the motivation to change our habits and could end up somewhere we wanted to avoid. Setting goals is essential to achieving success. Many have referred to the idea that unless you have a map you will not reach your destination.

Goals, however, can be incredibly ambiguous or vague.  Take for example: “I want to lose weight” or “I want to be better with my money”. The intentions are obviously good yet it’s near impossible to tell whether these people have achieved their goal. An essential part of setting goals is making them measurable. Nominal values are extremely helpful so instead say: “I want to lose half a stone” or “I want to save 10% of my income”.  This gives you a bar against which you can measure your goals and gives you a good idea of how much more time you need in order to reach them.

What I have found incredibly useful is sharing these goals with friends and family. This is useful because not only are you repeating the goals verbally (and therefore reinforcing them) but you are making a pact with others as well as yourself to reach these goals. For this reason I am sharing my goals with you.

My personal finance goals are currently:

1) Ensure my emergency fund is kept in a competitive instant-access savings account with an interest rate above inflation (at the time of writing: 3.15%)

2) Save for a deposit on a house of £50,000

3) Contribute 10% of my income every month to my pension

My previous goals that have been reached include:

1) Create an emergency fund with 12 months worth of essential expenses (rent, food, bills)

2) Create a wedding fund

For obvious reasons I do not give my actual figures here but I know what they are which means I know the exact value of my goal.

What’s also important when setting goals is to set deadlines. During our years in education we’re given homework or essays which are due on a specific day. When we transition to working life we are given similar deadlines. The reason there are deadlines is that we need to have a limited time for anything if we want to achieve anything. Set a deadline for your goals. You can divide your goals into short term (1-5 years), medium term (5-10 years) or long term (10 year +).

For my current goals I have set a deadline for my house deposit for 2020. I know that with the amount I plan to set aside each month plus compound interest which I’ve estimated to be 6% I will be able to reach this deadline.

Set your goals and ensure you can measure them. Set a deadline. Reach your goal by your deadline and you’ll be flying.