The Art Of Setting Goals

Girlfriends we should be goals setting goals of our lives in order to reduce our stress and keep focused on the tasks at hand. Based on my life's experience I believe there are four main areas where we need to set goals: spiritual, relationships, physical fitness and financial.

Spiritual – Make it a goal to serve

Relationship Goals

Your spouse - Keep the eternal flame of love glowing. At least once a week do something together. Just the two of you. This doesn’t always have to involve spending money especially when you don’t have it.

Take a stroll together through the neighborhood (or another neighborhood), go to the beach and watch the sunset. Carry a picnic bag with dinner and a blanket.

Go to dinner at your favorite restaurant.

Check out a concert or play in your city. Even if it’s an evening at home just the two of you. Be creative here. Stage an area of your home and turn it into a romantic restaurant, deserted island or an underground tunnel of love.

Your Children - Sit down together at least once a week for dinner. Have a game night – this is great especially on holiday weekends.

Do an activity they like at least once a month. Be sure to rotate this so no child feels left behind. Take the time each day to talk with them. Ask about their day. What was the favorite part of their day? The least favorite?

Physical Fitness Goals

Physical Fitness -

Financial Goals

Someone once said “I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor. Rich is better.”

We are going to be financially responsible this year by setting goals to manage our finances! Here is how we are going to do it.

Decide on what your top financial goal(s) are for your life. Don’t make it more than five.

Prioritze them because we are going to start on one this month. For the next two months we will focus on really getting that going. Then in the third month we will add the second one. Remember, we want this year to be different. We are actually going to accomplish our goals.

Now we are going to break each of those down into bite size pieces that will help us build up to our goal.

Set up a budget if you haven’t already done so. Project out for the next twelve months. List your regular expenses month by month (mortgage/rent, car note, insurance- home, car, health, and any others).

It is important to get this down on paper. No guessing – write exact amounts or as close to as possible. I know you don’t know exactly how much your food bill will be (Lord knows with prices going up every week this will probably be the hardest part) Give your best estimate. Make sure it’s doable because this will be your blueprint

Stick to this budget. Reevaluate every three months, once again amake sure it its realistic.

Save Save Save. I can’t stress this enough. Regardless, of what your financial situation is right now. You must be saving money always. It doesn’t matter if its $5 a week you are putting in an account.

At the end of the year you would have saved $110. Which is $110 more than you would have had if you had not saved. We all must start from somewhere.

I remember Oprah was doing a show on saving money. A guest on the show claimed that he saved all the remaining change from his daily purchases for 10 years. He wound up with $90,000! Obviously he had to be very disciplined to accomplish that feat, but he did it and so can you!

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