By Samuel Rosenberg from Caribbean360

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Thursday October 16, 2014 – We all want to achieve financial security and success throughout our life. To be financially successful you ought to set your life goals at strategic points between now and the rest of your life. Once you understand your goals in life, you will be able to appreciate the financial targets you will require for yourself to meet and plan for during your lifetime.

Some people will believe that life goals and financial planning are two separate areas of your life’s ambitions, but if you study it carefully you will note they are closely linked and both are reliant on each other.

By setting goals for your lifetime, you will be able to break them down into small steps that make them much more easily manageable as will the matching financial targets which accompany them. This will help you understand all about your strengths and weaknesses so that you can use your power correctly and learn to better your limitations to ensure that your career, your family and your financial goals are all heading in the right direction.

Goal setting is the exact opposite of drifting through life and letting things happen to you whenever they do. If you are unsure about what you want to achieve in life, then you can be sure you won’t achieve much and what you do realise will be purely by accident.

Without goals, you will be at the mercy of everyone telling you what they want you want to achieve, whether you do or not. By knowing your short, medium and long-term goals you will always understand the deadlines that you set and will not waste time that is precious to you and your family.

All long-term goals need to be broken down into small, easy steps. This prevents the goals becoming overwhelming and taking up too much of your time without reaching an end goal. By accomplishing small goals, you will know that you are on target and simply put, you will be looking to achieve the next small goal in your long line of targets. If you fail to meet one of your smaller goals, it is easy to adjust your planning in the future to set yourself back on line with your objectives.

With clear goals, you can accompany each of your future activities with matching financial purpose. It is not easy to supervise the finances to run a family and home and perhaps a business, but it is far easier when you understand each of the smaller financial steps you must take to ensure that your targets remain manageable.

As you grow older you may wish to change your long-term goals, which may be related to your private life, your work or your help in the community. By applying smaller goals at each phase, you can adapt to each stage of your life and make all of the necessary changes to keep your finances in check and balanced with your requirements.

By setting life goals, you put yourself in charge and despite any downsides to your lifestyle or health as the years pass by, you and your family can remain the centre of your planning and provide everyone with the best financial future because you planned for it.

Samuel Rosenberg – The writer is the founder and CEO of Axcel Finance Ltd., the leading regional microfinance institution. Share your thoughts and email your questions to [email protected]

IMAGE: 3d rendered illustration of some money sacks and the word “success”

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