Organize And Break Your Goals Down Into Actionable Steps

steps to successHave you made a list of goals for 2010 yet? Most of you probably saw my very comprehensive list of resolutions that I posted on Friday. In fact, some of you may have cringed at such a long list. One of my good friends, and a subscriber, sent me this message in response to that post. “Drink more beer!” Haha!

Now I just want to point out to all of you that this is a first for me too. I’ve made resolution after resolution, year after year, only to lose interest fairly quickly. It seems that most people, including myself, decided it was too much work to do once they realized how much work it would take to complete them. I want to change that for myself this year and I have a lot to accomplish.

For me it was the overwhelming feeling I would get when I started to think about what needed to be done. (Just like how paying off your debt feels when you are at the beginning of the process.) That’s why you work on one debt at a time. One is easier to work on than ten, right? Paying down your debt takes preparation and goal setting to alleviate that overwhelming feeling.

What’s next?

If you have already completed your list of new years resolutions for 2010, pick the most important goal on the list. The goal that if completed, would have the biggest impact on your life. Do you have it?

Now take that one goal and write it on a piece of paper in big letters at the top. Under that goal, use the brainstorming process to figure out what steps could be taken to help you reach the ultimate goal. Write them down. It doesn’t matter if they feel incomplete or pointless, do it anyway. (You may eliminate some of the steps as you complete the brainstorming process, and find that something else will work better.)

The point is to write it down so the creative parts of your brain get to work. This process is amazing because it literally feels like you are an idea waiting to happen. One idea leads to another and before you know it you have become excited about all of the possibilities. Sometimes, there are many, and other times there may only be a few necessary steps to accomplish.

This is what one of my goals looks like after completing this process.

Example 1: Save $13,500 to complete Fully Funded Emergency Fund of 6 months of expenses. (Baby Step 3)

  • $13,500 divided by 12 months = $1,125 per month. (pretty lofty)
  • Set up automatic deposit for $500 to be placed into our ING Direct savings account.
  • Earn extra $700 each month in income.
    • Make $400 per month selling items on Ebay.
    • Make $300 per month creating logos.
  • Budget EVERY extra dollar (disposable income) to go into savings.
  • Use envelope system to help curve impulse spending, throwing any money not spent in each category at the end of the month into savings.
  • Budget at least 75% of all tax return money, if any, to be deposited into our savings.
  • Save the entire $2,000 nursing bonus the wife gets at her two year mark.

So there you have it. That’s my working list of goals I will need to work on in order to accomplish the big goal of saving $13,500. It was actually pretty simple and way worth the time taken to do it. My plan is pretty clear and I know what to do—which is the point.

Set Yourself Up For Success In 2010 By Preparing The Details

Sometimes preparation is more important than the actual goal itself. Anyone can have a goal in there head, but there is only so much you can do in your head to help prepare to accomplish that goal. As much as this may seem redundant or unnecessary to some, it is important to create a game plan for how you will accomplish whatever it is that you want to accomplish.

When a contractor decides to build a house, he doesn’t just randomly start building—he has the blueprint prepared that will help him complete the house exactly the way the buyer wants it to be built. Not doing so would leave too many things to chance, and would turn out to be a disaster more often than not.

Now go create your list of objectives and mini goals you will work on in order to finish what you set out to accomplish. Don’t leave it to chance. Chance is not going to make anything happen, you have to do it. Just like with your finances. Good luck!

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About Brad Chaffee

12 Responses to “Organize And Break Your Goals Down Into Actionable Steps”

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  1. Arturo says:

    It is a great aproach to just make mini bites to at the end eating the whole cake. Since I have not yet prepared my list I will take in account this matter you have post today. Anyway at the moment I am enjoying the Three Kings’ Day with my daughter. Greetings Brad and continue as you are.

  2. Beckey says:

    We had set our goals prior to the New Year. On December 30th, we came up with our plan of attack, which also included a Debt Free Date! Our date is 10-2012, which seems so far away, but the plan also included all our snowball payments for EVERY debt (credit card and loans). We felt so accomplished by doing this. Now, each time we pay our bills, we look at the list to see what the amount is (including any snowball) and pay that. We are also putting aside $100/week into our savings account and almost have our $1000 EF funded. We decided that, since we are not feeling the $100/week, that we are going to just keep this automatic transfer setup until we have $2500 in our EF, then we will start a new Savings account with our Credit Union to build up our 3-6 month EF. It’s awesome to have this plan in place already and we are both full steam ahead with it. ๐Ÿ™‚

    • Becky I think you will be amazed at how fast time flies!! I started my debt snowball in jan 2008 and 2010 WILL BE MY LAST YEAR. I have set up auto deduct so there is no way to fail or over spend. You have some great goals in place and I can see you being debt free !!

      • Beckey says:

        Thanks for your response. I know time flies and we cannot wait to be debt free. We envision it so often that we will probably end up getting more aggressive as we get closer to our DF date. We’ve setup all our bills via our online banking website, but haven’t completely automated it yet. We need to build up a bit of a buffer in our Checking account before we can do that.

  3. Sharon says:

    LOVE this post! It was just what I was looking for…I have some pretty lofty savings goals, with one less income…I think this exercise will definitely help focus me in the right direction!

  4. Peter says:

    you should try mint.com if you haven’t

  5. Great post! It’ll help folks out who are just getting started with setting up some goals!

  6. Tracy says:

    Well put Brad. It’s certainly one thing to choose a goal, but once chosen, execution is another place that we get stuck. Baby steps are a good recipe for success.

  7. What do you think about breaking all income into percentages? For example, 25% goes directly into savings, 33% goes to rent/mortgage, 15% utilities/HOA, 4% “fun money”…and so on.

    I think your goals are lofty and you can achieve them through hard work. But we all must remember what we are saving for. I want to enjoy life while saving. So that hypothetical 4% is important because it 1)keeps me sane, 2) helps me take adventures, 3) balance for mindset of savings, and 4) allows hobbies to persist.

    I think goals are great and important when it comes to finances. I also think people create these high expectations and then kill their progress because during all that hard work and savings they didn’t enjoy life as well.

    I am not saying you or anyone needs to be spending 10-15-50% of their income on “having fun” but neglecting such, I think, will KILL your motivation and progress.

    What do you think?

    David Damron
    LifeExcursion

    • Brad Chaffee says:

      You bring up a very good point David! I believe that people should determine their own “balance fund percentage”. I think it’s different for everybody but especially for married people who may have two different sets of needs. Finding that balance is key to being able to accomplish any goal we put forth for ourselves.Whatever that percentage ends up being needs to be based on that balance.

      For some balance may be spending 10% on entertainment for the very reasons you stated, while others may only need a much smaller percentage to entertain themselves. That percentage ultimately comes from the persons individual or collective priorities. For instance, my wife and I sacrificed during our “pay off debt” tour, but we believe that it was completely worth it. For two years NO vacation, and while it did have it’s trying times, we made it through it. It also enabled us to be able to take off so much time when our baby Noah was born. My wife took off 3 months, but only got paid for 2 of them. I took off about 5 weeks with no pay. Had we not sacrificed it would have thrown the whole chain of events out of whack. We might still be working on our debt going into 2010, but instead we are working on saving that money.

      Our sacrifice was worth it so I would then say that the value we placed in getting out of debt was higher than the value of going on vacations. This is not to say we didn’t do things to have fun but we didn’t need to take a trip or have the “traditional” vacation where you board a plane and take off, we did other less costly things. I think it is important not to make it a goal to eliminate sacrifice from the equation—not that you have btw.

      Finally, someone could see debt as something that can cause unhappiness, depression, extreme stress, and possible insanity. Therefore, sacrificing entertainment seems like nothing, which is kind of where we were when we started. Our marriage was starting to get really tough as the financial pressures began to affect how we responded to each other. The sacrifice was important for us to make it where we are today.

      We will likely sacrifice in the same way for saving our emergency fund to 6 months of expenses. No extras and lots of CHEAP but valuable entertainment!! ๐Ÿ™‚

      Thanks for the comment David!

  8. Money Funk says:

    Wow, Brad – lofty goals. But such fun! This is a great post – because sometimes seeing the smaller steps to the bigger picture is easier to accomplish and will not have you feeling overwhelmed. That would be sweet to reach your EF goal.

    I need to consider your goal of setting up a ‘clothing fund for your wife’. I’ve been sacrificing a lot in that category too. I think we all have. I did however, hit the thrift store – need to do it again when I have ample time to thrift.

    It’s gonna be a great year, Brad!

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