A Better Way To Set Your Financial Goals This Year
I’m temporarily rising from a chocolate-induced holiday slumber to wish you a Happy New Year!!! Or, more accurately given today’s topic: Happy Goal Setting Season!!
There’s something I love about the clean slate of January. One of my favourite rituals is taking a few hours to reflect on the past year, then pivoting into the new one with intention. I love piecing together what I learned, mapping out how I’ll use it, and sketching a plan for how I want the next 365 days to feel. The time is going to pass anyway, so I might as well spend a few hours figuring out how to best enjoy it.
Now, I know many of you swear you hate New Year’s goal setting. And I hear you. I can’t stand certain versions of it either — like that annual dinner party game where everyone has to announce a goal on the spot. (It always happens before I’ve thought about what I actually want, so I end up announcing something weird like ‘I wAnT To EAt mOre SWeeT pOtAtOes tHIs yeAr.’) But the quiet practice of sitting down, uninterrupted, to actually think through what we want for the year? I freaking love it. I’m nutty as a fruitcake about it.
And because I simply cannot abide by the idea that some people don’t set goals to start the new year, today I want to share one powerful idea that will:
Give you the cheat code that will help you make real progress on your financial goals this year. (and ergo, maybe not hate setting goals next year?)
Over the years, I’ve set plenty of goals that never happened. C’est la vie. Some were hits, some were misses, and some (like the apparent goal my 20-year-old self once set to ‘start a rousing chorus of Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy in a bar’) are better left unattempted.
One area where I’ve made consistent, steady progress through the years though is achieving personal finance goals. I know it sounds braggadocio to say (especially on January 2nd, before anyone’s had their morning coffee) but I’m sharing it today for a reason: early on, I stumbled onto what feels like a cheat code that made saving money shockingly easy, and I want you to try it out for size on your financial goals this year.
The Cheat Code: Autonomy is the ultimate ‘why’ to stay true to your goals
A strong, meaningful ‘why’ is one of the most powerful forces behind achieving any goal. And when it comes to saving money, the real why behind every act of saving is beautifully simple:
Saving money buys you more choices in the future. It gives Future You options. It gives you autonomy over your time. And having autonomy is one of the biggest drivers of human happiness.
Autonomy has always been a driving force in my life. It’s why I hated summer camp as a kid (scheduled arts and crafts time was far too structured for someone who wanted to run feral in the forest all day), and it’s why I’ve always been self-employed as an adult. It’s also why saving money has never felt like deprivation. I don’t see saving money as missing out on something today. I see it as actively choosing to purchase greater autonomy for a future version of myself.
Try using this as your ‘why’ behind every financial goal you set this year. You’ll find it acts as an anchor against the tides of advertising and social pressure we face on a daily basis. It will hold you steady as you work towards the greater goals that truly matter to you.
Most short-term purchases pale in comparison when you directly hold them up beside the siren-call of financial freedom. In fact, you’ll start to notice that a lot of those tempting ‘treat yourself’ purchases are really just more years at your desk in a trench coat, pretending to be something fun. Once you understand the autonomy tradeoff (combined with the wealth-building power of investing) many of your daily spending decisions will become very clear, and very easy.
In Closing
So try this approach on for size. Schedule some time this week to sit down and set your financial goals. Make it fun, go to a coffee shop with your notebook. Light candles at home and write with a glass of champagne. Park by the lake with your partner and map things out together. Pick a setting that inspires you and just start writing.
As always, feel free to share your financial goals with me! I’d love to know what you’re working towards as I work on creating more lessons, group challenges, and resources to roll out for you this year.
Before I send you off to write out your goals, I want to leave you with one of the sayings I have pinned to my bulletin board: We’re starting another year hurtling through space on a floating rock. Don’t take things too seriously.
I’ll see you again next Friday when the work year really starts. For now, I’m grabbing another cookie and heading back to my chocolate coma.
- Cory