Six Steps to Financial Goal Success

It's the start of a new year. And that means it's goal setting time again! Are you ready to set some goals?

So what about you? When you hear the "G word" do you cringe and think to yourself, "Right, goals… whatever." Or do your eyes light up as you tick off a long list of goals for the New Year that will be impossible to complete?

No matter if you have an optimistic or pessimistic outlook about your goals for 2011, both outlooks have something in common: Unless you know how to set goals properly, you will fail to complete them.

If you want to be an accomplished goal setter, you must:

1. Make sure your mind thinks your goal is achievable.

Businessman, philanthropist, and author W. Clement Stone once said, "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve." Said another way, if your mind can't see how your financial goal can be achieved, it will not come to pass.

Therefore, the key to achieving your financial goals is to put down on a piece of paper goals that your mind can immediately identify with and see as achievable.

Six Steps to Goal Success

Step One: Identify your financial goal for this year clearly and specifically. Be concrete. Put your financial goal into words, and be as particular and precise about it as you can be.

Step Two: Listen closely to how your mind responds to the financial goal you've set for yourself. You'll know if you've hit upon a conceivable figure when you feel an inner "yes" or experience your mind excitedly fast-forwarding to the goal.

Step Three: Next, identify your plan of action and create strategic action steps that will lead to goal success. If at any time you experience your mind balking or stalling, that's an indicator that the direction you're going in is unbelievable to your mind.

Step Four: Then—and this is energetically very important—schedule your first action step immediately and take it either now or within the next five days. Since what we focus on happens, it is important to schedule and take a first step to create momentum immediately.

Step Five: Evaluate your activity and measure success every step along the way.

Step Six: Reward and celebrate your success.

2. Eliminate Distractions

Distractions are the worst enemy of goal management and are one of the main reasons why goals fail. When we allow distractions to take our time and attention away from our financial goal, the result is frustration, leading to feelings of being overwhelmed, to thoughts of not being able to succeed, and ultimately to failure. Be fierce about your financial goal this year, and guard them with your time.

Top 5 Distracters for Home Based Business Owners

·E-mail: If you are a home-based business owner, you have a lot of e-mail coming into your inbox every day. However, very little e-mail actually has to be answered immediately. Find an effective way to deal with e-mail, and you will add hours to your day.

·Surfing the net: The Internet can be consuming, making it so easy to get distracted, lose track of time, and zone out. Control your surfing.

·Unsupportive people: As a business owner, it is important to surround yourself with people who are supportive "possibility thinkers" who know the value and importance of time. Anyone else is a time vampire.

·Interruptions: It's very easy to allow interruptions to occur when working from home. Make sure everyone (starting with yourself) in your family knows when your work hours are and when your playtime is.

·Not being able to say no: If you are a home-based business owner, the buck stops with you. If you don't say no to distractions that will take you off task, then who will? Exercise your right. Just say no, or, if you want to soften it a bit, say later.

That's it folks. These are the steps to take if you want to achieve your financial goal this year. All you need to do is make sure your goal is achievable by aligning your action steps with your mind, while eliminating distractions along the way. Remember, though, that it is ridiculous to spend time focusing on achieving a financial goal that your mind can't see as achievable. If you identify a financial goal that your mind balks at, replace it with one that brings a sense of energetic alignment and that all-important inner "yes."

Happy goal setting!


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Susan L. Reid works with women starting up home-based businesses for the very first time who are feeling both excited and overwhelmed at the prospect and haven't a clue where to begin. If you are ready to take the first steps toward owning your own business, get instant access to your own free PDF copy of "Doing What You Love: Multiple Streams of Passion".