An unfulfilled dream is the shortest way to a persistent itch in your psyche.
Be it a simple desire or your life goal: if you do not take any step to fulfil it, it becomes an incomplete cycle.
Every such incomplete cycle accumulates one after the other and starts troubling us from within. It goes on to the point of giving you a constant sense of emptiness and a never-ending internal conflict!
The harsh truth is, we all have that conflict growing on the inside. The most common is financial.
When you reach that point, you have nothing but two choices. You can either discard your financial dream or step forward and act to achieve financial success.
Table of Contents
1. Address Your Incomplete Financial Cycles
2. Start Making Things Happen
3. In The Right Direction
4. Focus On Financial Success
5. Perpetual Motivation
6. CHALLENGE Is Good
7. Mind as a Magnet
8. First Step To Financial Success
Whatever your choice may be, never let your financial goals be unattended.
It is because every incomplete cycle will drain your energy—leaving you weak and exhausted.
After all, we feel exhausted on the days with incomplete tasks than on the days we worked even harder and completed them.
If you choose to discard your Financial Goals and dreams, you may close this tab now.
But if you choose to achieve financial success by getting rid of those incomplete cycles, go on and read.
Address Your Incomplete Financial Cycles
Your path to achieve financial success begins by addressing the incomplete cycles you have in your mind.
It could be anything from Financial goals setting, organising your personal finance, doing your Tax planning at the beginning of a financial year, or as simple as preparing for a meeting with a professional financial planner. These are the most common incomplete cycles for most of us.
Even though some are recurring opportunities to get it done—like tax planning—many are one-time yet significant steps you have been avoiding for a long time. For example: Opening a PPF account or getting a term life insurance.
Such things can weigh you down without you being aware of it. Write down whatever you think are your incomplete cycles. Regardless of how small or insignificant it is, write them down and give them a form. It will get them out of your system.Once you address these incomplete financial cycles, you are free to take the necessary first step.
“There are people who make things happen, there are people who watch things happen, and there are people who wonder what happened. To be successful, you need to be a person who makes things happen,” – Said, James A Lovell
Start Making Things Happen
It is well said; that the journey of 1000 miles starts with the first step.
The problem is, often, many are not sure about what is the first step. People get tossed around and diverted by suggestions and advice from their friends and relatives. Nevera straightforward answer.
What is the first step to financial success?
The first step to achieve financial success is to define and set your long-term financial goals.
Write them down on paper. It gives your financial goals a shape. Bringing them to the real world in the form of words takes you closer to achieving them.
It is obvious and simple—but always overlooked.
All the financially successful self-made people started their journey with the conception of their financial goals.
But why is financial goal setting important?
Setting financial goals influence the way we think and act.
It shifts your perspective offinancial life into a world of possibilities and achievable tasks. It enables you to envision your financial goals; thereby helping you to achieve your goals and become financially competitive.
Let us have a look at how the goal-setting method helps.
Here are some universal truths about financial goal setting. And how it helps the financially successful people around the world.
In The Right Direction
Think about it for a moment—the reverse is also true!
By setting financial goals, you identify the right direction to your financial goals.It orients your mind, your perception in the optimal path to achieve your financial goal.
Imagine a person, just 33 years old, working hard and earning well.
If I walk up to him and ask:How do you want your retirement life to be like?
“I would like to be rich” or “I hope to be free of financial stress”
He’d say something along those words.
“Would like”
“Hope to be”
These are the indicators of a lack of direction.
Now, if the same person had said along the lines of, “I plan to be financially independent” or “I will be financially self-sufficient”
What do you think is the difference?
Direction and determination.
It is the difference defining your financial goal makes. It entirely alters your confidence in achieving financial success.
It is rightly said; that an idle mind is a devil’s workshop, and a devil mind brings the bad or evil results.So once a sound financial goal like being financially independent after retirement is set, your perception is diverted in the direction to achieve it.
You will effortlessly take the next step to achieve that goal and see yourself getting closer to it. It reflects on eliminating and rectifying failures in our financial planning, like investing in penny stocks.
It also enlightens our mind to the possibilities of setting aside losses and reorganizing our financial planning. But it doesn’t stop here.
Setting a financial goal as your first step to financial success also triggers a trait you will need along the way. It is the Focus!
Focus On Financial Success
People fail at financial competence—not due to lack of talent—but lack of purpose.
If you do not fixate on a long-term financial goal, you are more likely to be distracted by short-term thinking.
Author and TED Talks speaker Simon Sinek explains the importance of purpose in his book Start With Why.
The concept he named The Golden Circle. It explains addressing your purpose—the why—communicates directly to the limbic system of the brain.
It is the part of the brain that deals with emotions and behaviours. For example: your survival instincts, your fight or flight responses of your subconscious mind.
Setting long-term real financial goals and writing them down helps you address its purpose. In response, it triggers your subconscious mind to focus on the highest level towards your financial goals.
With a clearly defined financial goal, we begin to think and investigate ways to meet our long-term financial obligations. We look for the best interest rates in banks and companies, the rate of appreciation in gold and property, the appreciation in mutual funds, shares, and stocks. We gain a fresh perspective to assess the risk factors of each investment.
Setting of financial goals channe ls your focus effectively towards narrowing the financial difference to achieve financial success.
Does that seem like enough reason to choose Goal Setting as your first step to achieve financial success?
Direction and Focus.
It may be enough for some, maybe even you. But this has more to offer; to tackle real challenges along the way.
It is the mind-numbing loss of motivation. It is very possible since the real financial goals are long-term.
What if your spirit goes down? How will goal setting help?
Let’s find out!
Perpetual Motivation
It is a no brainer; long-term financial goals mean delayed gratification.
The only worst thing about delayed gratification is that there is no frequent reward mechanism attached to it.
Down the road, it might seem like you’re putting in your time and energy for nothing. The effect of which will be loss of motivation to continue. Unfortunately, it could even make you stray away from your purpose. In turn, it makes all your previous efforts to achieve financial success pointless.
How can financial goal setting can help you stay motivated?
The consistent and prolonged hurdles without any immediate reward is a crippling factor to your motivation. By having goal setting as your first step, you will have your eye on the goal before considering the hurdles.
It sets the tone for your entire journey. And it keeps you motivated in the longer run.
It may seem hard to believe. But it is scientifically proven through a social experiment.
The Super Mario Effect
Mark Rober, a former NASA engineer, conducted a controlled social experiment with 50,000 people.
He asked two groups of people to complete a task. The first group focused on the outcome while he reminded the other group of their failure after every failed attempt.
The result was that the success rate of the first group of people was 68%. Meanwhile, the success rate of the second group was only 52%.
It is not just that. After every failed attempt, the first group of people instinctively tried again until achieving success.
To effortlessly keep yourself motivated, focus on your end goal and not the struggles you go through.
Desire is a motivating factor that makes the fulfilment of financial goals a compelling reason. It is true, for your beneficial goals would make you strive towards its attainment. Saving and investing for your goals like the marriage of children, their higher education, and financial sufficiency in retirement will keep your resolve intact.
There is no better way to keep your eyes on the goal than making it the first step to your financial success.
CHALLNGE Is Good
Who doesn’t like a good challenge?
It tests our potential—lets us know our strength while making us stronger. It keeps us engaged in the best way possible.
And every challenge brings along a positive change with it.
It rewards us with joy and happiness on winning, with experience and learnings if we fall short.
In short, it is the perfect tool to make us move forward and higher in any aspect of life. Itis true; we all like challenges. And we want to prove that we are successful to everyone, and more importantly, ourselves.
In personal finance, a real challenge is non-existent if we do not set a financial goal.
Setting financial goals like a comfortable retirement corpus makes us want to prove that it is attainable. So we work hard to meet the challenges to prove ourselves worthy.
In other words, creating challenges by setting financial goals are the opportunities you create for yourself. It fills your life with purpose and a deserving reward, whatever the outcome maybe.
Mind as a Magnet
Your mind attracts what you believe.
Your desires become thoughts. Thoughts become ideas. Ideas become words. Words become actions. And actions becomes reality. Your reality.
Setting your financial goal is where your ideas become words. It is where your financial success transcends from fiction into the real world.
But how can you take it further, to make it a reality?
You may have heard the term Law of Attraction.
The key is to manifest the goal you want to achieve. Communicate it to your subconscious mind through various techniques.
It is proven to work through numerous studies.
A Real-World Experiment:
Dr Biasiotto at the University of Chicago conducted an experiment where he randomly created three groups of people. He asked them to try free throw basketball to the net. He recorded their performance.
Later: He asked the first group to practice free throws every day for the next 30 days. The second group to visualize they were practicing free throws. And the third group nothing.
After 30 days, Dr Biasiotto gave them the same task to free throw the basketball.
The third group showed no improvement after 30 days.
The first group’s performance improved by 24%.
The second group’s performance—who only visualized playing without even touching the ball—was improved by 23%.
It is a significant leap through the power of manifestation alone.
The mind gets magnetic to your financial goals once you define them and give them a form. It influences your action to look for the best financial saving or investment opportunities for your financial goals due to a state of extreme awareness.
Our minds focuses more on the goals that we set in life; this applies to even financial goals. We then find opportunities that we missed previously; our mind now works with a fresh perception of attaining financial goals.
First Step to Financial Success
To conclude, financial goals are just like seeds sowed in all our minds.
Nurture your financial goals consistently by seizing the opportunities that come your way. With the nurturing of financial goals, we are motivated to avoid harms like bad investments that could restrict us from achieving financial success.
Begin with an idea; give it a shape by taking your first step to financial success. Follow where it takes you. The next logical step to financial success would be to create a detailed financial plan to ensure you achieve these financial goals.
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