Set Goals to Take Action

Where we have been and where we are going…

Core Principles

1. Cash Management (Budgets & Expenses)

2. Debt & Credit Management

3. Saving & Investing

4. Goal Setting & Planning

5. Risk Management

6. Taxes

I love this quote, I think about it all of the time. It’s daunting to try and pick what to do on a day to day basis, let alone some future that we do not even know or understand. So how do we decide what our goal or plan should be?

There are loads of ways to plan and set goals. People all over the internet are going to tell you this way or that way is the right one. In reality it is all going to come down to you. What gets you out of bed in the morning — what motivates you?

Once you can answer that question we can move forward, until then just stare at a wall until you figure it out. Literally free your mind of all distractions. It’ll be weird and boring at first but just trust me, give yourself the freedom to think with no distractions. Give it a full hour, minimum, don’t listen to music, pods, or books.

From there we can then ask the questions that are important to setting goals. If you do not know that first then you will not know why you are making goals in the first place. I do not know the answer for each of you but I can take you through my process.

First off you should know that I am not a big planner, I more or less go with the flow. When I do set goals they are super high level and borderline unachievable. I want to see how far and fast I can push myself towards things. That is not for everyone hence my point, this is going to be different for all of you!

Why goals are important!

We need a destination; this will help us get to where we want to go. It is as simple as that. The way I use my goals is to decipher how much work it would be to reach something. I start with that end in mind and then I break it down and break it down until the first step is buying a domain name or whatever. (That is just the internet entrepreneur in me, so that is almost always the first step.) Things arise all the time that I could not have planned for, so that is why I do not over plan. I create the bare minimum plan that would take me from where I am to where I want to be. Sometimes there is traffic or detours. Maybe we have to make a pitstop. In the end, that is how I create goals. I have something that I think I want. Then I break it down into X steps to get there. Then if I want to pursue it, I have done all of the hard work of figuring out how to get there.

Then I take action, I have a few domain names that I have never used because I rerouted. I know that for me that is just the cost of taking action.

If there is anything to take from this article it’s that the first step should be easy. Same goes for every step after that, which is why you break it down. Sorry for this math nerd comment, but this is like finding the least common multiple back in the good ole math class. You can find all the parts that make up a journey and at each step you can find the smallest thing you can do to move yourself forward.

As with most things in life the simplest way is probably the right way. There is no need to make this overly-complex. Instead you should focus on understanding why you think you want to achieve something, aka your goal. Really get to the bottom of the why, otherwise you might just be living someone else’s fantasy instead of your own. Again there are a million ways to skin a cat as they say but you must pick one. This is normally a part of my stare at the wall activity.

I like to think about all of the reasons why something would not work out. Let those things creep in because they will at some point anyway, whether or not we want them to. I write them all down and then once I have my list, I write out exactly what I would do in that situation to either solve the problem or at least make sure I do not bleed out on the ground from it. Not everything is solvable to be a positive but everything can be improved upon.

Normally by the end of this activity I am gung-ho about starting. If I do this and look at the possible results and they are worse than I anticipated I scrap the idea or goal and move to something different. I believe the most important thing is to not let something sit “in your head” when trying to figure out your path. By writing everything down you can see the whole picture without distractions or worse forgetting some of the picture.

Not every idea or goal needs this much in-depth attention but your “North Star” absolutely needs this much attention. If back in the day, you were navigating at night and you thought a star was the north star and instead it was some other star you would be very far off course from your destination. It is worth an hour to a couple of days of contemplation. After that you should have enough information to make a decision and move forward. I’ll preach this until my dying days. Always move forward, there is no reverse. We cannot change the past, but we sure as hell can change the future.

Focus on that.

Things in life are going to be hard, so we want to take the simplest steps forward to move closer and closer to our goals. I believe that this video does a very good job of breaking down what this process is and should be like if you want to be financially free. It isn’t magic but it would help every single one of you! I am going to be breaking it down in more detail next week. I know it’s homework, but guess what if you want to reach FIRE you are going to have to do some homework. I believe this is worth it.