Quit Dreaming About Money, and Make Your Financial Goals A Reality

I find many people struggle with this and I certainly did in the past.

A few months ago I was preparing to fly to London. As I was preparing for the flight I was very aware of just how much time I had to get everything done so I would be on that flight and on my way with everything prepared.

I realised that the deadline of the flight's departure was not something that was negotiable. Either I was on the plane, or I missed it!

It made me think. If we lived our lives like the important things we say we want to achieve were non-negotiable we would achieve a lot more!

It is too easy to say, “there's another day tomorrow”. If we set a time or date and then make it as important as catching a flight — with no room for error — it can make a huge difference.

The other thing that I recently came to understand with deeper clarity which has helped me in setting and achieving financial goals is this:

Dreams vs Goals

We all have dreams. The older we get, the less time we have to make them a reality, and I notice that older people tend to find it harder to get excited about dreaming.

As children we had no trouble at all about saying that one day we would have a flash car, live in a castle, fly to the moon, marry a handsome prince/princess and so on.

The reality of it, though, is that as humans we can outdream our ability to achieve by 1,000,000 times to 1.

If you have had trouble setting financial goals in the past it may well be because you are confusing dreams and goals.

A dream will always be a dream unless you set it as a goal and the most important thing you need to realise is that you can dream thousands of dreams and not one of them will happen unless you deliberately pick it out from the rest and say “That's the dream I am going to make a reality first!”.

It is not possible to pursue all those dreams at once and if you try to, you will not achieve any of them as well as you would like (if at all).

Pick just one dream and make it a goal

Children are great at believing they can have all their dreams. Adults have the ability to turn them into reality with belief, action, focus, and a deadline — but you MUST identify the ONE dream you are working on right now and stick to it until it is realised.

Don't worry about ‘how' at first, just that it is what you are going to do. Once it is a non-negotiable goal you will work out how.

It's only when you choose a dream and focus on it that you will turn it into reality. Do not keep changing channels. That's dreaming again!

What kind of financial dreams do you have? It could be something like:

• Buy a home for your family
• Eliminate your debts
• Create a realistic retirement plan
• Go on the holiday of a lifetime
• Buy your children piano lessons
• Invest in a property

The specific approach helps you turn vague dreams into concrete financial plans. It allows you to take the steps to change your life for the better and take a more proactive strategy with your money.

That's all for now.

Remember: Turn your Dreams into Goals and things start to happen!