Do your goals inspire you?

This might sound corny, but "Are your goals inspiring?" If your goals are too practical and limited, you wont have incentive to discipline yourself to do the things necessary to achieve them. If you don't involve your emotions and imagination in your goal-setting process you'll find it extremely difficult to stay motivated and interested.

We understand it is necessary to set short-term goals as "milestones" along the road to acheiving your longer term goals but even with these, well defined markers in place, long-term goals will be hard to relate to if they are not specific enough. Consider this goal plan:

I want to save enough money so my children can attend university and then have enough left over so I dont have to live of the pension.

With this:

I want contribute $________ towards John and Sue's university education. I also want to trave to (name of country) for (number) of weeks. I want to save $________ for this purpose. I will have enough money invested so I can draw a monthly income of $_________.

The more colourful and personal the plan, the more real and exciting it becomes. The easier it is to visualise the goal the better. Its your responsibility to arrange your life in any way that suits you. Put some effort into having something to look forward to besides simply meeting a financial obligation.

Set Goals!