OVER the years — sigh, make that "over the decades" — I've learnt a hard-won lesson:
My most productive seasons have yielded their richest harvests when I took time to…
1. Select my goals;
2. Focus intensely on them; and
3. Pursue them relentlessly.
The second and third segments of that formula for success are immensely effective, which raises an odd problem with the first part. Whenever I selected a goal that I thought was important, but then ultimately waned in relevance, I ended up squandering time and energy focusing on and pursuing an end, which ended up worthless.
We all make such mistakes throughout life. Hopefully, though, such time-wasting errors in judgment occur with reducing frequency as we grow in wisdom from one birthday to the next.
We should become better at selecting our goals with age.
IMPORTANCE OF GOAL-SETTING
Numerous books have been written on effective goal-setting. In my opinion, the best one was written by professional speaker and author Brian Tracy 20 years ago, in 2003, entitled Goals! How to Get Everything You Want — Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible.
I have been learning from Tracy for more than three decades. I own at least 15 of his books and audio programmes on crucial subjects, ranging from setting goals (of course), taming procrastination, managing both money and time, and selling and marketing professionally; and I've seen and heard him speak live twice. So, yes, BIG FAN.
I particularly like his observation about the connection between personal goal-setting and peak performance:
"Your ability to discipline yourself to set clear goals, and then to work toward them every day, will do more to guarantee your success than any other single factor."
In my professional life, I estimate I use a specific definition of financial planning — derived from an extinguished version of the CFP (Certified Financial Planner) Board of Standards website — between five and 10 times each week when telling potential clients about my practice paradigms or when reminding existing clients about what is important to them.
This definition packs a wallop in just 17 words:
"Financial planning is the process of meeting your life goals through the proper management of your finances."
Furthermore, when I speak at workshops and seminars on financial and retirement planning, I analyse this definition closely to help my varied audiences understand that money is not the most important element in financial planning. If you reread the definition, you'll realise the most important facet or element of financial planning is "your life goals".
The second is the "process" of meeting those goals, which emphasises the initial blueprinting process to accomplish them. And, in my opinion, "your finances", or to put it directly, your money, comes in third position.
That's why I spend a lot of time in the initial months of getting to know potential clients, who then choose to become actual clients, to understand their dreams, convictions, and aspirations — their life goals.
Truly understanding the goals that matter to us is the master key to the best version of our lives, which is probably why the legendary Steve Jobs once observed:
"That's been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex."
SIMPLICITY AND FOCUS
Apple, which Jobs founded in 1976 with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, is now both the most valuable company (by market capitalisation) and the most valuable brand (by brand equity — comprising customer loyalty, public brand awareness, public mental associations and perceived quality) on our planet.
Jobs emphasised simplicity and focus. Well, when I look at the lives of the most successful people I know or know of, I see a pattern emerge time and again.
Our world contains a maelstrom of distractions; the few amongst us who proactively organise our lives around an intentionally small number of simple goals tend to succeed far beyond those who, instead, flit from one short-term interest to the next without ever settling on a field to utterly dominate through intense focus.
In my opinion, the two reasons that correct goal-setting works so well are:
1. In selecting goals that are important to us, and by dumping those that are not, we streamline and simplify our lives;
and
2. When writing down our key goals each day, we proactively focus on what matters to us.
The relevance of all this to your personal finances through the financial planning process stems from the importance of building sufficient wealth to accomplish what we truly desire in the years to come.
Such goals may include educating our children superlatively well, retiring comfortably, giving philanthropically, travelling the world unfetteredly, or any other aspiration that matters only to us.
FOCUS GENERATES RESULTS
If the results we want and are willing to pay the lofty price for involve accumulating sizable material wealth, then it is safe to say the discipline of laser-like focus can generate such wealth if we blend that crucial discipline with diligently doing the work.
To help us exercise such focus, consider these instructive words of Brian Tracy: "Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement. Think on paper and write them down!"
© 2023 Rajen Devadason
Rajen Devadason, CFP, is a securities commissioned-licensed Financial Planner, professional speaker and author. Read his free articles at www.FreeCoolArticles.com; he may be connected with on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/rajendevadason, or via rajen@RajenDevadason.com. You may also follow him on Twitter @Rajen Devadason and on YouTube (Rajen Devadason).