How setting goals can drastically improve what you are capable of achieving.

Securities offered through TFS Securities, Inc. and Advisory Services through TFS Advisory Services, a SEC Registered Investment Advisor Member FINRA / SIPC. TFS Securities, Inc. is located at 437 Newman Springs Road, Lincroft, NJ 07738 (732) 758-9300.

Welcome to the EnjoyMore30s Family Finance

podcast. The only podcast dedicated to making life more

enjoyable for young families by hitting on the financial topics

that tend to weigh on us, stress us out, and distract our focus

from simply enjoying life.

Hello and welcome to the fourth episode of The

Your Major Money Misnomers series. As always, if you like

what you're hearing, please make sure to subscribe or follow us

on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. Clicking that star,

leaving a review really helps us reach other young families out

there. So last week, we discussed Tax Refunds are Bad

(Whaaat?!), help you better understand what a tax refund

actually means, AKA loaning money to the government on a 0%

interest loan and what you can do to change that amount you may

be receiving by lowering your withholdings, saving the saving

the difference, or even contributing more into your tax

free growing Roth retirement accounts instead. So check that

out if you haven't already.

Today, we are discussing goals. Schedule Goals...Achieve Goals,

where we are going to discuss why goal setting is so important

even if it initially can seem so daunting, maybe just downright

annoying. We're going to cover what you need to know about what

makes goal setting so powerful and what you can do to more

easily work it into your life. In grammar school, for me, we

had this physical fitness test, I think that's what it was

called. And there are two basic levels of achievement. You

either I guess didn't get any achievement at all, you got the

higher level achievement, or you kind of got the lower level one.

So there are three different boxes you could kind of fall in.

And to get that top one you needed to excel in every single

exercise test that they laid out. There was sitting reach,

shuttle run, push ups, I think as well, outside of push ups,

probably a lot of really antiquated exercises that nobody

would ever tell you to do anymore in the gym. But you

know, being the competitive person, I was/still am, I wanted

the top level. Now all of those I didn't have any problem with

that I listed so far. I mean, sitting and reaching, touching

your toes, doing a couple push ups that was okay. The one thing

that drove me crazy, though, was the pull ups. I just could not

do enough to qualify and it always landed me in that lower

level of certification. One year, I decided that I wanted to

actually train ahead of time in preparation, and I was able to

drastically increase what I was able to do. Now you think this

story would be about perseverance and hard work and

glory and the ending to the story is that I now received the

higher award but I didn't. I went from maybe three pull ups

to six pull ups, but I needed like seven or eight. So I still

didn't wind up getting what I wanted, I was in the same kind

of lower certification category. And for my eyes for how I looked

at things at that time, at least, I had failed. And you

know, you feel pretty crappy about that. So what you need to

know is that if you ever felt this way before, when it comes

to goal setting, you may have an incorrect viewpoint on goals,

like I did for pretty much most of my life. Judging the success

solely based on that outcome. When I first started at New

Horizons, one of the earliest things that the founder, Bob,

did was to review my goals annually. Now, I don't think I

really ever consciously made another goal probably between

that presidential fitness test time and starting this first

job. I mean, there were things that I wanted to do for sure,

like go to a good college or make the varsity soccer team in

high school. But most of the time, I never really organized

them in my head is an actual goal. Just kind of, you know,

like stuff you want to do. There wasn't a formal plan or anything

like that to try to get me there and when Bob wanted to go over

goals with me, it wasn't just business goals. He wanted my

personal goals as well. And I found this really exceedingly

difficult. You know, what do you put down for goals when your

boss is asking? Should you make the goals really high to reach

towards them? What if I make it really big and then I don't hit

any of them and I look like a big loser in front of my boss.

Should I put it low so that I can hit it? But you know what if

he sees that I've really just setting super easy goals. What

does that say about me? So it really took literally years for

me to get to a point to not only stop being paranoid and anxious

around goals, but to really embrace them and love them. And

the switch for me was when I found out that goals aren't

really to make you feel bad about yourself. There isn't

necessarily a winning and losing to it. Goals are to help you be

farther along than what you otherwise would be. So in my

fitness test example, I doubled my pull ups. I was way further

along than I otherwise would have been. So what you can do is

take these lessons to your financial situation: make a goal

for monthly savings, make a goal for updating your legal

documents, make a goal for a budget. And if you don't hit it

exactly, don't beat yourself up about it, as you're likely

further along than you otherwise would have been. So if you're

saving, let's say, $100 a month now, and you think, "hey, my

goal is I'd love to be able to save $500 a month, that would

just be fantastic" then go for it. If you only wind up saving

$300 a month, you're still 200% better than your starting point.

At 7% growth, that extra $200 a month would be around $35,000

after 10 years that you otherwise would not have had. So

that's nothing to scoff at at all. If you have no let's say

legal documents set up and you give yourself 30 days, but it

takes 45 days, hey, that's, that's still great, that's

probably quicker than the 180 days it would have taken without

any kind of a plan or a goal. The other great part of this is

that when that time passes, it gives you a little reminder. If

you just say to yourself, I should really get my legal

documents done, you go years without revisiting it, like who

wants to think about doing their legal documents?! If you change

that statement to "my goal is to get my legal documents done in

30 days", then when 30 days passed, if it isn't done, you

could say "Wow, well, I didn't hit that but let me get let me

get myself another 30 days and try again". But you have that

reminder because you set a time frame for it.

So the recap for today is to remember that goals are to help

you make improvements more quickly. So don't think of them

as as failures. Think of them as "Oh, I didn't do that. Let's try

again. Let's reset that clock", and we're still on a path,

probably get it to get it done quicker than we otherwise would

have. All of this is about moving in the right direction,

taking steps in that right direction. So remember, any step

you take is a good thing. The most goal oriented ambitious

people in the world do not hit 100% of their goals every single

year. I've heard stats like anywhere from maybe 50% 60%.

Like that was that was our best year. So you know nobody is

setting all these goals and hitting on all of them. So don't

let that stop you from not even setting one.

Thanks as always for tuning in today. If you are able to

implement what we're covering, that's fantastic. You're better

off than you were before. You have less to worry about and you

can just focus more on what we're all here to do, enjoying

life. If you are wanting help with these things though, or

have questions you need help in clarifying, check out that Ask

Joe section on the show's website, www.enjoymore30s.com

that's enjoy more 3 0 s.com. If you enjoyed this episode

specifically, please make sure to subscribe reviews on Apple

podcasts wherever you listen. There are literally millions of

young families out there I'm trying to reach and help just

like you.

The next episode is Your Home Isn't an Investment, maybe

surprising, where we're going to break down what needs to be true

for something to really kinda have to be considered an

investment and how people can sometimes make negative

financial choices as a result of the traditional "your home is an

investment" mindset. Until next week, thanks for joining me

today and I look forward to connecting with you guys again

soon.

The conversations on this show are

Joe's opinions and provided for general information purposes

only. They do not constitute accounting, legal tax or other

professional advice for your specific situation. You should

always seek appropriate advice from a financial advisor,

accountant, lawyer or other professional before acting upon

any content or information found here first. Joe is affiliated

with New Horizons Wealth Management LLC, a branch office

of TFS Securities, Inc., and TFS Advisory Services an SEC

registered investment advisor member FINRA/SIPC.