Creating New Year’s Goals That Stick
Call them goals. Call them resolutions. Call them anything you want, as long as you call them something that will help you keep them.
Yes, it’s that time of year to assess what’s going well in our lives and where we want to make some changes. Don’t worry. This isn’t one of those blog posts about how you should save more money or create a budget. You’re the only one who knows where you need improvements.
Our only intent here is to give you pointers for making helpful goals or resolutions you can keep working on the entire year.
Make Your Goals Specific
If saving money is your goal, how will you do it? How much money do you plan to save? This is what we mean by specific. Don’t just say you’ll save money. Be more specific. For example, “In Online Banking, I will set up an automatic payment of $20 to my savings account every payday.”
Create Goals That are Measurable
How will you measure the goals you make to be sure you reach them? That should be relatively easy when you make your goals specific. Using the example above, you can check your account periodically to be sure you are on track for the amount of money you want to save and check that payments are still going to that account regularly.
Make Your Goals Attainable
This may be the most important piece of your goal-setting system. Create goals you can actually achieve. If you want to pay of $5,000 of debt by the end of 2024, make sure you can pay for necessities like food and shelter first. If your goal is compromising these things, it may be too hefty. Decide how much you can pay off by giving up luxuries first.
Create Goals that are Relevant
Sticking with a goal is easier when it is relevant, or maybe a better way to say this is meaningful. If you’re drowning in debt, setting a savings goal isn’t going to be meaningful if you have heart palpitations every time you pay your loan bills. Stick with a goal that gets your closer to a comfortable lifestyle.
Make Your Goals Time-based
Putting dates and timeframes to your goals helps you stay on track and adjust as needed. If you’re trying to save $1,000 by the end of the year, how much will you save each paycheck? If you’re trying to pay off debt, will you make two payments a month instead of one? Is your goal for six months or a year?
Treating you like family means helping you reach your goals. If you need help creating financial goals, or guidance with how to achieve them, our team can help you with that. Please come to any branch to ask for help or call us.
