Solving The Goal Setting Mystery

The art of being able to set goals and then achieve goals can seem like a mystery. It doesn't need to be this way, and in fact it is as simple as grabbing out a piece of paper and a pen and putting all of your thoughts and ideas down on paper. It is amazing what you can achieve when you put your mind into setting goals.

Below is a case study of a young couple and how they Solved the Mystery of Setting Goals.

Sienna & Byron

Sienna and Byron are getting married next year and at this stage this is the most important goal for them. They have other goals that they have discussed in the past, but these are all being put aside so that they can focus on their number one goal : Their Wedding

Although the wedding is their major goal, when they started to think about their day, they realised they also have several smaller goals / baby steps that they need to undertake along the way. They have decided to write all of these down.

Here is an example of some of those smaller goals / baby steps:

• Pay for the wedding in cash
  
• Travel to New Zealand for a honeymoon
  
• Organise a church wedding
  
• Organise a reception at Jack Jolly Occasions
  

They then found that each of these goals can then be broken down further so they thought carefully about each of them and wrote down all of the tasks / action items that they need to do to reach these smaller goals / baby steps.

Here is an example of some of those tasks / action items:

• Pay for the wedding in cash - Save $10,000 – do up a budget, trim expenses, set up a wedding savings accounts, set up an auto bank transfer to the savings account, save $833 per month over 12 months.
  
• Travel to New Zealand for a honeymoon – do up a travel planner, work out expenses, budget and save for honeymoon, research New Zealand, look at cost of flights / travel / accommodation / activities etc.
  
• Organise a church wedding – find a church, find a minister / pastor, book flowers, confirm service, write vows, find an organist etc.
  
• Organise a reception – write list of attendees, obtain quotes, decide on food / drinks, find band / entertainment, organise speeches etc

So Sienna and Byron have a lot of work ahead of them. They aren’t scared off by the long list of tasks / action items they have to complete because they know this will keep them organised and that they won’t forget to do anything. They have completed the Money Detectives Goals Tracker so have everything recorded in one spot.

For this to be a successful day though, it is best if they both keep a list of all of these tasks that they need to do and that they tick them off as they get completed.

Unfortunately it doesn’t stop here for them. There is more that they need to do. They need to keep working their list and reviewing their goals and tasks / action items.

So, they have decided that they need to sit down each week on a Thursday evening after dinner and go over the tasks that have been completed and prioritise the tasks that will need to be completed over the following week. This way they won’t be leaving things to the last minute and will be very prepared well ahead of time.

By being organised and prepared, it seems like Sienna and Byron will achieve their goal of having a wedding in 12 months time. Due to the extra bit of time and effort they are prepared to commit over the next 12 months, they will be guaranteed to have a very beautiful and stress free wedding.