Five steps to financial success

There are people who make things happen, there are people who watch things happen, and there are people who wonder what happened. To be successful, you need to be a person who makes things happen: James A Lovell.

When we have a desire or dream that is not fulfilled or we have not taken any step to fulfill it, then it becomes an incomplete cycle.

Every incomplete cycle, in some way or the other, keeps troubling us from within. There is a continuous and constant sense of incompleteness.

Really, it is a kind of mental frustration. Either discharge the desire, or take the first step or next step to fulfill it. Don't let it unattended. Every incomplete cycle drains you of your energy, leaving you weakened and exhausted.

That's why it isn't the day we worked a lot that tires us, but the day when many things remained incomplete that make us tired.

Financial goal setting, organising personal finance, doing tax planning in the beginning of the financial year, preparing for a meeting with a financial planner are incomplete cycles for most of us.

Let us then start making things happen:

It has been well said that the journey of 1,000 miles starts with the first step. Most of the financially successful people started their journey with the conception of a financial goal. Setting of financial goals influence the way we think and act, helping us to achieve our goals and turn financially competitive. In addition writing our financial goals, gives them a concrete shape to focus on achieve them. Let us have a look at how goal-setting methods help.

Here are some universal truths about financial goal setting that have helped most of the financially successful persons.

The author is an MBA (Finance) and certified financial planner. He is the founder and director of Holistic Investment Planners (www.holisticinvestment.in) a firm that offers Financial Planning and Wealth Management. He can be reached at ramalingam@holisticinvestment.in.

1. Focus

Most people have failed at financial competence, not due to lack of talent but loss of purpose. This is very true that once our financial goal is set, we start thinking and investigating ways to meet our long-term financial obligations. We start finding out interest rates in banks and companies, the rate of appreciation in gold and property, the appreciation in mutual funds, shares and stocks and the risk factors of each investment. Setting of goals diverts our mind effectively towards narrowing the financial difference towards our financial goals.

2. Direction

By setting financial goals we get the right direction to travel for fulfillment. It has been rightly said that an idle mind is a devil's workshop and a devil's mind brings about bad results. So once a sound financial goal like being financially independent after retirement is set, our perception would be diverted in the direction to achieve it.

This would apply to eliminating and rectifying failures in our financial planning like investing in penny stocks. This focus also enlightens our mind to possibilities of setting aside losses and reorganising our financial planning.

3. Motivation

Desire is a motivating factor that makes fulfillment of financial goals a compelling reason. It is true for our beneficial goals would make us strive towards its attainment. Saving and investment for pleasurable goals like marriage of children, their higher education and financial sufficiency in retirement would definitely motivate us for achievement.

4. Challenge

We all like challenges, for we aim to prove ourselves superior, and this applies to meeting challenges like financial goals. This is true; we all like challenges and like to prove ourselves successful. Setting financial goals like a comfortable retirement corpus makes us want to prove to ourselves that it is attainable. So we work hard to meet the challenges to prove ourselves worthy to others and ourselves.

5. Mind as a magnet

The mind gets magnetic to good financial saving or investment opportunities with financial goals due to a state of extreme awareness. Our mind has the capacity to focus more on goals that we set in life, and this applies to financial goals too. We then find opportunities that we may not previously have found as our mind works with a different perception of attaining of financial goals.

Financial goals nurtured lead to financial achievement

To conclude financial goals are just like seeds sowed in our minds. This goal in the form of a seed is nurtured with good financial opportunities that come our way. With the nurturing of financial goals (seeds) being important we are motivated to avoid bad investments that harm the growth of the financial tree.

With the desire to see a full-grown healthy tree of financial sufficiency makes us make regular savings and investment. Lastly facing the challenge of a healthy financial tree makes us extremely aware of opportunities to ensure the best-grown financial tree.

Let us take the first step to be financially successful, by setting our financial goals today.