Setting goals and working to achieve them can be fulfilling, but it can also be difficult to change long-established habits. One slip on the journey towards a goal, and it’s difficult to regain motivation to keep trying. One of our advisors, Benjamin Cummings, PhD, CFP®, joins other financial experts in providing advice in this article in USA Today. The main takeaways are highlighted here.
First, start small. Big changes are difficult to maintain; small changes are much easier to manage and more likely to stick. Next, visualize your objectives. Writing down your goals and envisioning specific details about them can provide motivation to actually achieve them. It also helps to think about your future self. If your older self could talk to your current self, what would the older you say? Strengthening this connection between our present and future self helps us better plan and prepare for the future.
As you create a plan to work towards your goals, set reminders. Making things automatic – like saving towards retirement – makes it much easier to achieve future goals. Also, think about any obstacles that might stand in your way. Not only is it helpful to identify these potential obstacles ahead of time, doing so also helps us view these obstacles in the proper light, often making them more manageable to overcome and your goals more likely to be achieve.