If you haven’t already, check out Part One – Taking Stock and Part Two – Goals Setting.

Setting goals is the easy part. The fun part. Now it’s time to take action and achieve those goals. The work part. The most important part. Below are a few tips for ensuring that those New Year’s Resolutions don’t get forgotten, and some ideas on making your goals easier to achieve. Writing all of this out sounds like a lot of work, but as with everything, a bit of work in the beginning makes for smooth sailing for the rest of the year.

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This article follows on from Part One – Taking Stock. 

In this article I’ll go through some tips for setting goals.

Dream Big

Don’t censor yourself at this point, no matter how outrageous your goals are, write them down. This is so much fun. For the moment anything and everything is possible. Dare to write down on paper everything that you want to achieve in the coming year.

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I love new beginnings. Monday, the first day of the month and New Year’s Day. It may seem irrational, but I feel a sense of renewal at these times and have a much more positive outlook. Yesterday is behind me. Looking forward, anything seems possible.

So making New Year’s Resolution (or setting goals for the year) is a process that I look forward to every year.

Setting goals and having a system to work towards them gives purpose to life. Also having and working towards goals is one of the keys to happiness. Many New Year’s resolutions get forgotten by the end of January because there is no easy system in place to ensure we follow through on our resolutions.

This is the process I use to set goals for the coming year. I’ve written about this before, but I thought it would be timely to write about it again now.

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Yesterday, I wrote about setting goals, how to brainstorm the things that you want to achieve, and how write them down using the best language so that you are setting yourself up for success. Today we are going to look at how to turn those goals into a reality. Setting goals is the easy part. Making them happen takes some effort.
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Do you want to turn your dreams into reality? Are there things that you want to do with your life or things that you want to have, that seem impossibly out of reach? The key to achieving our dreams is to set goals in a systematic way, and take positve, concrete steps to making our dreams a reality.

What has goal setting got to do with frugal living?

Part of the frugal way of life is setting goals and working towards achieving them without letting short term gratification via consumerism get in the way. Whatever your goals may be, money often plays a key role. Your goal, for example, may be to travel and so part of the planning to achieve that goal will be to save for your trip. Of course, you could go into piles of debt achieving your goals, or you could plan, budget and divert your money from short term gratification spending, to saving for those things that you really want and are really meaningful to you.

Goals setting – the path to happiness

In January 2005, Time Magazine did a feature on what makes us happy. Among other things they found that beyond meeting what are considered basic needs in today’s society, wealth did not make people happier. In fact, in one of the most affluent times in history, cases of depression are at an all time high. Studies have shown that no matter how much money a person earns, they believe they still need more to live well. Of course, the things that truly make us happy are things that money just can’t buy. Love, friendship, family, respect, a sense of belonging to a community and the belief that one’s life has a sense of purpose.

Creating a sense of purpose is – in part – about goal setting. Expectations about the future have more influence on a person’s happiness than their current situation. People living modestly, but anticipating better days to come are likely to be happier than those who have nothing to look forward to. This is where goal setting comes in.
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