How to stay focused on your financial goals

You have decided to change or take control of your financial situation. Amazing! You are excited and motivated at first but then the doubts start to creep in. Thoughts like - I will never be able to achieve this? Who am I to even think I can do this? Why am I wasting my time, this will never happen.  

If this sounds familiar, it may be that your mindset is getting in the way of you making progress and achieving your goals. Or is it the ghosts of past mistakes? Do you beat yourself up for past financial mistakes? It’s important to forgive yourself for past mistakes so you can move on to a better relationship with your finances. There isn’t a single person who hasn’t made an mistake with their money. It’s time to accept past mistakes, learn from them and move on with purpose. Set your goals and getting working towards achieving them.  

Here are some easy to follow and practical steps I have followed which have really helped me stay focused on my goals. These can apply to any set of goals you are striving towards, not just financial.  

1)   Write down your goals and read them everyday. List your goals in a journal, on a white board, your phone notes - somewhere you can easily access and read them everyday. When you find yourself going off course or doubting yourself, take them out and read them.  

2)   Know your “why”. For me this is crucial to success. Just listing your goals is not going to be enough to keep you motivated. You need to understand why you want to achieve each goal. It’s what will keep you moving in the right direction when it gets hard. Why are you doing this? Why do you want to buy, fix, pay off, achieve that goal? Write down your why and remind yourself of it regularly.  

3)   Know your weaknesses. We all have our weakness, we are human! Identify your weakness’ and be mindful of situations where your weakness may put your goals at risk. Set strategies for how you will deal with the weakness if it arises.  

4)   Start with the smaller goals first. Focus on goals you can achieve easiest or quickest first. It’s like building up a resilience muscle. This way you can bank that sense of achievement for when you need to work harder on the bigger, longer term or harder to achieve goal.  

5)   Mel Robbins’ 5-4-3-2-1 strategy. This is such a simple strategy, easy to implement and has scientific evidence to back up it’s effectiveness. In Mel’s words ‘If you have an instinct to act on a goal, you must physically move within 5 seconds or your brain will kill it.’ It’s a simple as counting down from 5 to 1 and acting. I use this every day and it has been the best motivational strategy I have ever come across! Check out more here.

6)   Surround yourself with like minded people who will hold you accountable or inspire you. According to motivational speaker Jim Rohn, we are the average of the five people we spend most time with. We are influenced by those closest to us. Our closest family, friends, colleagues affect our way of thinking, how we spend our time and money and how we make our decisions. It’s important to be conscious of who you are spending your precious time with – will they help or hinder you in achieving your goals? Do they inspire you? The more like minded and supportive people we surround ourselves with, the more successful we will be. Bonus points if they also hold us accountable to our goals!  

7)   Treat yourself, have some fun. Life is for living so it’s important to have some fun too. Working towards our goals should not take all the fun and pleasure out of our lives. Find a way to live your life while working on goals, write down something you will treat yourself to, or how you will celebrate when you achieve each goal. You know what they say about “all work and no play”!  

Click on the link below for a copy of my goal setting worksheet!