A few days back I had posted some financial resolutions. I had promised to do a follow up on the same. Here is the first part of the promise.

The resolution no. 1 was: I will write down my financial goals.

I am sure, you are thinking Oh My God, this is boring. Sure. Success is not about knowing (Saraswati), but finding a Guru (Hanuman) to make you wise enough to do (Parvati). Robin Sharma (yes the famous one!) says the advantage of setting Goals is it gives you Focus, Growth, Measurement, Alignment, and Inspiration. His article on Goal setting is surely worth reading – and is google able – if you do not get it try “dna india goal setting robin sharma” you will surely get it.

Most people have financial dreams. In fact all of us have dreams. Dreams are like this:

1. I want to lose weight

2. I want more money

3. I want a bigger house

4. I want to travel more.

Are these goals? The answer is no. These are dreams. A dream becomes a goal when it is SMART – i.e. it is specific, measurable (with regard to the amount and time), actionable BY YOU (not dependant on millions of other things), Realistic and it is TRACKED.

Writing down the dream (thus making it a goal) allows you to live the goal – rather than dream the desired asset. Typically if you want a car saying things like “I wish to own a Black Jaguar car, costing Rs. 75 lakhs, for which I will do a SIP of Rs. 150,000 a month for 4 years in Hdfc Prudence fund, accumulate this money and buy this car as soon as the fund value reaches Rs. 65 lakhs, borrowing the balance”.

This is a SMART GOAL – in our case a SMART FINANCIAL GOAL. You can set such similar goals for many things in life. Like saying “I wish to reduce 9 kgs. in the next ONE year, and for this I will join (and go to!!) a Gym near my house, stop snacking on fried foods, eat home meals as much as possible, use a food tracking diary and monitor my weight in an excel sheet”.

If you write down the pleasures of reaching the goal in a seperate sheet, take pictures of a black Jaguar and paste it all over the place – bathroom, bedroom, office, etc. the whole thing will work on you. And as they say “nature conspires to make it happen”.

So viola if you did both these mentioned here you would have a black Jaguar in 4 years time and you will weigh 9 kg less in one year. Oops I forgot, these examples are not important, your GOALS are!! So best of luck.