How many financial planners / bloggers / management gurus have told you that you should be Goal Oriented?

A few thousand I presume?

Well it was not very useful, correct?

Let me give you an example from Running -as a sport. You could be running a Half Marathon in say 2.07 hours, and now you want to run in 1.55hrs.

You could be obsessed with that number of 1.55 hrs – but hey that does not help. You need to know what is the process that you need to do for achieving that time target.

So maybe you need to get a coach, get him to make a plan, have a weekly plan, a plan for say 14 weeks leading up to the event, and go out and train. If the plan says ‘Run at a pace of 6’ – you need to run at a pace of 6.

In the financial target – say you have a target of saving a few million for a particular goal Your planner has said you need to start at the age of 24 and invest Rs. 2000 a month. You have saved Rs. 1500 but are short of Rs. 500. What do you do?

Make sure that you cut some expenditure, …and reach that magic figure of Rs. 2000.

So concentrating on the final goal of a few million is fine, but you need to concentrate on the PROCESS. The process of saving Rs. 2000 is the MOST important focus.
Then you have to be sure that every month the Rs. 2000 is in place in the bank account, and the SIP happens smoothly. If the amount has to be upped every year by say 10%, then that also has to happen on the anniversary of the SIP.

The discipline is the PROCESS – so you need to be Process oriented in the beginning, then it becomes a habit. Once it becomes a habit, the goal is more clearly visible. The only way you achieve the goals is by being clear and focused. When you TAKE your eyes off the Goal, you see obstacles 🙂