MAINTAINING MOMENTUM ON FINANCIAL GOALS

WHY MOMENTUM IS IMPORTANT

We all have financial goals that we would like to achieve at different points in our life. Those goals might be for things like getting off debt, saving up an emergency fund, saving for a vacation, saving for a car, or investing more. As important as it is to set the goals, it is as important to have a plan for maintaining momentum on financial goals.  As we all know, once we lose momentum on something, it’s difficult to get it going again.

Often, when we initially set these goals that we have in mind, we are really excited about them.  We have a lot of energy and develop a plan on how to achieve the goal. We determine how much we need to put towards our goal each week or month, and how long it will take to achieve it.

However, once we get started and we are several months in the excitement starts to wear off. Maybe you are on month 3 of a 24-month goal, and you are starting to feel like it will take forever to get this accomplished. 24 months didn’t sound that long when you first put it on paper. But once other things start to come up that you want to do or purchase, it can become difficult to keep your focus on your goals for the long term. So, it’s important to have some strategies to help you keep your momentum going and stick to your plans so that you can achieve these goals.

TAKE A LOOK BACK AT SOME PAST ACHIEVEMENTS

Looking back at some long-term goals you have achieved can help you realize how quickly time actually does pass. This does not have to be only for long-term financial goals you have achieved, but for anything you have done.

If you are younger and haven’t really achieved any major goals yet that you want to look back on, then even just think about getting through high school, or college. When starting, it seems like a long road ahead, but when you look back you realize how fast it went.

It’s kind of just reminding yourself that it seems like it will take so long to achieve your goal, but when you look back it will remind you how quickly that time will pass, and how happy you will be that you put your goal in place. This is important for maintaining momentum on financial goals.

SET REALISTIC MEASURABLE GOALS

While it’s great to dream about hitting huge goals, when it comes to keeping your momentum and actually making progress on your goals, it’s important to set goals that you can reasonably achieve and that you can track your progress on.

Don’t set the bar too low, you do want to push yourself, but be realistic about what you will actually be able to accomplish. You also don’t want to set a goal like “I want to save more money”.  Theoretically, if you save $1 more dollar, you would have met the goal.  Set a dollar amount you want to save and by when.  Then you can track your progress.

FOCUS ON A LIMITED AMOUNT OF GOALS

You can only focus on so many things at a time.  If you are trying to work on too many goals at once, it’s going to be really difficult to keep your momentum going.  It’s important to be able to really focus on what you want. When you have too many things you are trying to accomplish, it’s impossible to really focus on any one of them.

Pick one or two goals that are the most important to you. Pay attention to what needs to happen to achieve those goals. For example, if you are working on savings goals and you have 10 different things you are trying to save up for, it’s going to be hard to see much progress on any one of them. This could make you feel like you are never going to get anywhere on your goals. If you put everything you have into one or two of them you will see progress happening which will encourage you to keep going!

BREAK DOWN YOUR GOALS INTO SMALLER PIECES

If you set a goal to save up $10,000 for an emergency fund and you know you are only able to put aside $50 a week, this goal could feel unattainable to you which can discourage you from even trying. Instead, maybe set a short-term goal of $3,000 in one year, with the long-term goal being $10,000. I realize that $50 x 52 is $2,600 not $3,000.  However, you want to set the bar a little bit higher so that you will be encouraged to put anything extra you can scrape up towards hitting that goal. By setting your first goal at $3,000 instead of $10,000 you will be able to see real progress towards hitting the goal which will help keep you going.

The same can go for something like hitting your retirement contribution %.  Maybe you want to get up to 15%, but you are currently at 3%.  It can feel almost impossible to get up to 15%.  Maybe set a goal for yourself to match your pay increase to your increase in a contribution each year.  For example, if you get a 2% pay increase, increase your 401k by 2% at the same time.  By doing this a little at a time, you will be where you wanted to be before you know it.

CELEBRATE BENCHMARKS ALONG THE WAY

Pick some benchmarks that you can hit in a reasonable amount of time (maybe 2 – 3 months). When you hit those goals do something to celebrate! Celebrating does not need to involve spending money. It can even just be acknowledging what you did, thinking about it, and being excited for yourself for hitting this benchmark.

If you make it a point to celebrate these points along the way, it can be really helpful in helping with maintaining momentum on financial goals so you can hit the next benchmark. It also keeps your goal in mind so that you don’t lose sight of it.

Thanks so much for checking in! If you would like to hear the podcast version of this topic to check out Lola’s Frugal Life Podcast! Also, be sure to check out my other blog posts on this site!