Goals are great. Its fun, and productive even, to think about what you would like to do or accomplish. Goals can be material things like a new car or a dream home. They can be experiences like traveling around the world. They can especially be intangible achievements like learning a new language, getting good grades or passing an important test, or maybe just exercising regularly for six months straight. It feels great to achieve your goals, but is there something more to it?
To achieve your goals you have to put in the work every day. You invest time, effort, energy. Your goal becomes almost like fuel that drives you forward. Doesn’t make much sense to work on learning a language or to study for a test if you have no desire to.
Goals aren’t only nice to have and think about, they are literally the energy and drive that pushes you forward. Without them you might just sit on your couch all day. So you could say that goals bring things to life.
Goals that involve money are the missing ingredient in bringing a budget to life. Budgeting without a goal in mind is like studying for a test you’re not going to take. A goal is the fuel you fill your budget with to get it to race towards your goal every day.
So get those goals down on paper right next to your budget. If the goal involves money, a plan is really the only way to make it happen. Knock out a few goals and you’ll start to see a pattern. There’s always one goal that will keep your budget moving forward: maximizing savings.
