The First Step to Setting a Monetary Goal Is to Ask Yourself, “Why?”
Paying off student loans, opening a Roth IRA, saving for an emergency, these are all financially responsible chores, and it’s great. However, they don’t work as goals if you can’t make them personal. When setting your money goals, ask one important question: why?
Writer General Electric Miller of 20SomethingFinance makes a good point:
I think this is becoming an increasingly common practice in our modern culture. We hear that something is beneficial, so we want to imitate it without thinking why. Or, at best, the “why” question is a secondary consideration … The biggest drawback of missing the “why” is that it leaves very little intrinsic motivation to follow through on our goal. We will run into problems, and if we don’t, then the goal was probably too easy to start with. During those difficult times, the “why” is what will keep us motivated, help us dig deeper, and push us to new heights. It helps us refocus.
I can link. After paying off my student loan, my new financial goal was to simply start saving money. It seemed like the right thing to do, but I really didn’t know why I was doing it other than what my personal finance told me. Result? I didn’t save much because I didn’t have a goal that mattered to me. In the end, I got the answer to the “why” question: because I wanted to travel. This response motivated me to live beyond my means and save a lot more money.
Miller recommends working backwards. If you want to get your finances in order, “start with the why and end with a financial goal.” It is more meaningful and works better, he said. The rest of his post can be viewed at the link below.
All Successful Financial Goals Should Start With This | 20SomethingFinance