Achieve Your New Year’s Financial Goals – Beyond the Budget

The start of a new year is often a powerful trigger for change. Many of us will use this as a signal to set money resolutions or financial goals. Whether you aspire to save a significant amount, start investing or eliminate nagging debt, the journey starts with building a stronger personal foundation.

To increase our chances of success in turning aspirations into reality, here is a simple 3-step blueprint focusing on both mindset and action:

1) Clarify Your Relationship With Money

It’s easy to focus only on the numbers, but true financial well-being hinges on a healthy relationship with money. This is about our emotional and mental connection to it.

• Identify Your Why: While wanting more money is common, have you truly paused to consider why?   Unexamined desires can lead to a vicious cycle of relentless pursuit without ever reaching a feeling of “enough”. If your new year’s financial goals are driven by external expectations or a deep-seated fear, achieving them might leave you feeling empty
• Watch for Blind Spots: Past experiences may have led you to view money as a security blanket or a marker of status, unconsciously giving it control over you. This can result in self-sabotaging behaviours that pull you further from your goals
• The Foundational Key: Building healthy mindsets around money—across acquisition, spending, and management—is the fundamental foundation for achieving your new year’s financial goals

Remember, money is simply a tool. Its value is defined by the emotional and mental connection you have to it and the personal purpose you assign it. It is key to ensure that your new year’s financial goals truly align with your life, so get clear on that purpose. This clarity helps you use money as a means to achieve your true priorities, rather than mindlessly chasing a number. It also sets you up for success.

For a deeper dive into this crucial concept, read our article: “How to Manage Money Better: Align Your Values, Master Your Money.” We believe that aligning your financial decisions with your core personal values is the secret to moving from constant struggle to true financial empowerment.

2) Identify the Next Single Action to Take

3) Remove the Friction

Think back to past resolutions or goals that you have dropped. Was the obstacle a lack of finances, or was the process itself too overwhelming or “hard”? To achieve your new year’s financial goals, we must proactively remove barriers and excuses.

• Automate for Simplicity: If administrative tasks like saving or debt repayments don’t excite you, automate them. Use an investment robo-advisor if that suits. Identify the sources of friction and automate them where possible to remove the mental resistance of having to take action
• Break Down the Impossible: If a goal feels impossible with your current financial planning, apply simplicity and break it down into smaller, manageable mini-goals. Focus on succeeding at one mini-goal at a time. For example, if a $5,000 saving goal is too much of a stretch, look at your finances and see what is a feasible monthly amount to start with.
• Get An Accountability Partner Foundational Key: If you know that going it alone is not sustainable either due to being time-poor or just being the way you function, seek a financial planner or an accountability partner to provide guidance or support

By getting clarity on your relationship with money, taking one single action, and proactively removing friction, you set yourself up for financial success that lasts far beyond the New Year.