How To Set Financial Goals

There is an adage that says, “a person who fails to plan, has planned to fail”. One must learn how to set financial goals if one is serious about building wealth. This is not to say that the only step to building wealth is through setting a financial goal, but it is to say that setting these goals helps to maintain wealth gotten no matter how little you believe that wealth is. So, if your father is not Dangote or Otedola, here is how to set financial goals;

There are many reasons for anyone to set a financial goal, and yours cannot be all. To set a financial goal, you must find your pain point. Do you want to pay off a loan or do you want to buy an apartment? Are you saving up for a wedding or are you saving up for a trip? Finding your pain point is the first step to overcome and also a continuous motivation to hit your financial goal. For this article, feel free to write down your pain point and draft a plan.

• ASSESS INCOME LEVELS

If you are like most Nigerians, it is safe to say that your income levels do not meet the target for your financial goal within the timeframe that you want. This can be frustrating as no one wants to suffer for 600 years before they get their new home or cash nest. The goal of assessing your income levels is to help you realize that time is of the essence and how to work in time to reach your financial goal. Find other ways to make extra income that would augment your main salary. This income is preferably remote and should not be less than 40% of your main income.

The next best thing to do is to set realistic goals. One might not always find the income necessary to dispel a pain point, and the logical step is to adjust the goals. This brings them to surmountable levels and reduces the chance of a person going into depression as a result of being unable to reach the goals. After these goals have been set, you should commit yourself to achieve them. What this does is that the possibility of achieving the goal, if only you stick to the plan, would propel you to achieve it.

• CONFESSION

The truth about financial goals is that they have to be more than the money itself, otherwise, after the goal is reached, a person can blow that cash and cascade down to where he began. This means that time, energy and resource gotten over a long period goes into thin air.

What to do? Create an accountability group. This group should consist of people with similar financial goals and a penchant to keep to plan. There should also be a singular platform where the accountability group would meet to share experiences and challenges. This way, you have mastered the art of how to set financial goals.