Happy New Year. Hope your holidays were great and you closed out the year accomplishing your spending goals. Let me be the first to congratulate you on making it to the 4th week of another year and the start of a new decade. I am soooo excited, just pumped, for the promise that another year brings. Aren’t you? I hope you’re well on your way to accomplishing your 2020 financial goals. You know……goals? Your aspirations? Dreams? Those successes you want to achieve this year. If so, I want to encourage you to stay on target and don’t lose hope. And if you have not started on 2020 goals, there’s no time like the present to get started! I’ve listed just a few ideas below for you. These steps will help get you on your way to a stronger financial year and successful decade. So, let’s get started!
1. Have A Vision. Visualize where you want to be and don’t lose that vision. Accomplishing the objectives you set for yourself requires more than writing down a few intentions on a piece of paper. Don’t get me wrong, having your goals written down is a huge piece to accomplishing where you want to be, but having a vision is just important. Without a vision there can be no purpose. Goals starts with a vision.
2. Revisit & Revise. Revisit your previous year’s goals. Assess the goals and accomplishments you were most successful at and even the areas where you didn’t prevail. Evaluate what helped you triumph in the most successful areas as well as what prevented you from reaching success over the goals that you didn’t win. Use these measures as tools to help you carry out and achieve your goals for this year.
3. Create A Plan. I can’t say it enough – PLAN PLAN PLAN. Planning is essential to get you where you want to be. It’s like google mapping your destination. How do you get from point A to point B? Even if it is just a few thoughts in your mind, to reach a specific destination you generally think or map out how you want to get there. Do you ever leave your home wanting to go to the store without even thinking about the road(s) you will need to take to reach your destination? No. That’s just how it is when it comes to finances. You don’t just say, I want to make a million dollars by the end of the year and poof you’re there. You must first figure out how you will get from your current income to the million dollars. Do you need to change jobs or pick up additional work? What will get you to your financial destination? Planning or mapping is what will set you on your way and help you to see the path that you need to take to get to the end goal.
4. Be Detailed. Be specific and be realistic about your financial goals. If your annual income is $20k at the start of the year, it would pretty tough to be making a million dollars by the end of the year. You must take baby steps. What is it that can move you to the next level in your income? A raise? Picking up some side gigs? Or finishing up that degree? And where will the additional measures you’re taking to increase your income get you? Can you double or triple your income, or will you only add a couple of thousand more dollars to what you have. Being realistic will set you up for success.
5. Partner Up. Find an accountability partner. This will essentially be your cheerleader. someone who continues to encourage you to stick with your goals. A person that will pick you up when you’re down and discouraged and finding it hard to stay committed. Now you have to understand that your success is not completely and totally dependent upon your accountability partner. You have to take on the complete responsibility of improving your financial wellbeing. That is no one else’s burden to bear. Your accountability partner’s primary concern is to coach you, to help keep you moving forward and committed to your financial cause. This is someone you can communicate with regularly who will check progress and help you work through any distractions or obstacles that surface.
6. Re-evaluate & Update. Revisit your goals often. Do not let an entire month pass without reviewing them. Take time at least once a month to re-evaluate where you’re at and, if needed, tweak your plans to make sure you’re staying on track. There are always unexpected events in life that come along to knock us off track. So, evaluating your plans and refocusing will help get you back where you need to be.
7. Recycle Goals. Did you make resolutions last year that you either abandoned or did not accomplish? Rollover those unaccomplished goals to the current year and make a pledge to work on them now. Just because you may not have accomplished a goal in the time you planned, doesn’t mean it should fall by the wayside. Understand that some goals are not attainable in a year’s time, especially when it comes to finances. Many financial goals are more long term. As a matter of fact, when it comes to your money its ideal to even map out a 5- and 10-year plan with milestones set each year.
8. Avoid Additional Debt. A financially healthy lifestyle is not one filled with debt. If you think about it, how can you make strides towards your financial freedom if you’re busy paying others that you owe. Debt is simply putting off paying for goods. But deferring payments comes at a cost and that cost is the interest you pay. Now depending on your credit score, you may qualify for lower interest rates, but nevertheless, you’re still essentially paying more for your purchase than you would just paying it out right. If the problem is affordability, try saving for those items that are not emergency needs and wait for when you have the cash to pay in full. Saving for those items you can’t afford right away gives you the opportunity to gain a little interest on your savings as opposed to paying interest. The key is patience.
9. Avoid Late Fees. Having to pay late fees for not paying your bills on time is along the same lines of acquiring debt. The late fees charged for overdue debts will have you paying more in the end. The same can be said for overdrawing your bank accounts. Spending more than you have can cost in charges and fees by the bank as well as the creditor you owe. Utilizing autopay either through your bank account or through the creditor’s website can help avoid late fees. Auto payments combined with planning and budgeting your money for the month will help to avoid overdrafts.
10. Have Patience. Last, but most importantly, you MUST have patience. Psychology Today quoted a December 2018 U.S. News & World Report indicating 80 percent of New Year’s resolutions are abandoned before the year is out and most fail by February of each year. I believe the absence of patience is one of the biggest reasons so many people end up abandoning their goals and especially so early in the year. Just like with exercising to lose weight. You’re not going to lose everything in a span of a few weeks, a least not taking a healthy route. Results take time. Be patient with yourself and all that effects your finances. One way to help with being patient is to set small goals, or milestones, that you can accomplish along the path to the much larger goals. You will see some results much quicker and be encouraged to keep moving on to the next steps to reaching that final result.
Now, take the steps that you’ve learned above and start applying them to your 2020 financial plans. Make sure to download a copy of my 4-Part Spending Plan to help you organize your money. We started 2020 with 366 days to make a difference in our financial wellbeing. Due to the leap year, this includes 1 whole extra day to make a change in our financial future! Isn’t that awesome? What will you do with your 366 days? Make the choice to finish the year better than how you started. Even if it started great, have an even greater year end. Remember to be wise, plan smart and be “Centsable” about your approach
