12 Tips for Reaching Your Financial Goals

If you’re serious about achieving your financial goals, follow these twelve tips to ensure your goals are more than just simple dreams. 

Make sure they’re specific enough. If you set a goal “to save more money,” how will you know when you’ve saved more money? When you’ve saved $5? $500? $5,000? If your goals are too vague you won’t know how to achieve them or when you’ve reached them. Make sure your goals are specific so you know what you’re working toward. 

Write them down. Seeing your financial goals written down mentally reinforces the goals. Once you’ve written your goals, place the paper close by so you can refer back to it often.

Commit to them. Don’t just set goals and forget about them. Make a firm commitment to accomplishing each financial goal that you’ve set. 

Make sure they’re challenging enough. You may give up on your financial goals if you think they’re too easy. Instead, set the bar higher so you get the satisfaction of working for it.

But not too challenging. At the same time, you have to be sure that the goals you set are attainable. Otherwise, you’ll be disappointed that you’re not making progress the way you thought you should.

Give them action steps. Without a plan, your goal is just a wish. Think about what it takes to accomplish each of your goals. Write down the steps you need to take and work on the steps one at a time.

Measure your progress. You may be far away from accomplishing your big goal, but tracking your progress shows that your efforts aren’t futile. Watch the way your emergency fund grows or the way your mortgage balance goes down and you’ll feel better about the work you’re doing to make your goals happen.

Celebrate milestones. Keep yourself motivated toward reaching your bigger goals by celebrating the smaller successes along the way. For example, you if your goal is to be debt free, a celebration worthy milestone is paying off one of your credit cards. 

Work on them consistently. Your savings account won’t grow if you’re adding to it only once every other month. Your debt balances won’t go down if you’re only paying extra to them every so often when you can. Give frequent and consistent attention to your goals to improve the chances that you’ll reach them. 

Change your goals if you need to. Your financial goals aren’t etched in stone. It’s ok to adjust your goals to better fit your current situation. Maybe your priorities have changed or you realize your goal was too unrealistic. Whatever the case, changing your goals is better than leaving them the same and failing to reach them because they became unattainable. 

Think positive. A little positive thinking goes a long way. You may feel discouraged sometimes, but positive thinking can keep you focused on the steps it takes to achieve your goals.

Be patient with the process. Rome wasn’t built in a day and you can’t expect to reach your financial goals in a similarly short period of time.