Get your list of goals for this New Year to find out where you both want your ship to sail.

• Goals are to give you a better chance of achieving something more quickly than you otherwise would have without goals. (04:50)
• What makes each of you happy now? (06:04)
• What would make you happier? (07:15)
• What keeps you up at night? (08:41)

Quote for the episode: "So goals overall can be things to add to your happiness, or things that can also stop detracting from your happiness." (10:08)

Securities offered through TFS Securities, Inc., and Advisory Services through TFS Advisory Services, an 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 this next series that we've

put together for you on the EnjoyMore30s Family Finance

podcast. It's really exciting after a couple of weeks here to

be back, to be able to bring you some new content hopefully be

able to help you in a new way in a new year. And so you know,

being a new year, this is the time where we all get kind of

energized. You know, we have new beginnings, new improvements,

new steps that we can take forward that we didn't quite get

to maybe the year before. So we're going to help you focus

all that energy in this series when it comes to your finances

specifically, so you can get off to that great start in this new

year.

As always, if you do like what you're hearing, please make sure

to subscribe, follow us on Apple podcast. Really wherever you

listen, clicking that star, leaving the review, it really

really helps us reach the quite literally millions of other

young families out there just like you. If you want to hear a

focus on finances related to your mindset, your parent's

mindset or even helping your kids with their own mindsets

growing up, then check out some of our past seasons that dive

really deep into those various areas. This series though, like

I said, is about getting off on the right foot for this new

year, and is why we titled this series, Setting Your Compass For

The New Year. We'll have lots of great nautical references and

puns just to you know, try to tie that in as much as possible.

And there will also be lots of exclamation points flying around

in the titles to try and help leverage that energy, right?

It's a new year, and we want to harness that energy to do good

things. So we're going to cover how to set that financial

compass for the new year, putting yourself first, using

what we call a bucketing strategy to help organize and

prioritize your goals and really much much more exclamation point

on top of that.

Today's title specifically is titled Goal Setting Is a Two

Spouse Exercise!, where we're going to talk about the very

first part in setting that compass, which is really

figuring out where exactly you want to go, right? And really

not only where you want to go, but more accurately where you

both want to go. The goal for today's episode is for you to

walk away with clear questions to get that list of goals for

this new year, we need to know where that ship is sailing. So

when you're married, you have one ship, you're two people, but

you're floating on one ship. You may decide to have separate bank

accounts, split up who's responsible for you know the

electric bill versus paying the mortgage. But you cumulatively

have one ship still. You're agreeing maybe to have separate

chores to upkeep and separate closets even to keep all your

tools in that you're going to do it with. But a ship can only

sail in one direction at one time. It has one steering wheel

that you and your spouse have to sit together and you know, over

my almost 15 years of working with families, I've seen

countless times that spouses kind of look awkwardly at each

other, when we ask them about their goals, and their spouse

gives maybe a totally different answer than what they expected.

"You think I'm working til 65?! There's no way I'm going to do

this for that long. I don't like my job!" So things like that. If

you haven't had a goal conversation with your spouse,

this means you're certainly not at all alone. But this is still

the first step now where you may want your journey to take you

determines on how you build and pack this ship to help take you

there. To aid you in this conversation, I have a list of

three different questions that I want to run through. And it's

really a lot of the same questions I asked the families

that we work with, to help them gain clarity on what actually

would make them happy, what goals they should set. So that's

a key point here that we want to make sure we don't forget too;

goals are things that would make you happy, not what you think

you need to do kind of goals. You don't have to retire early

if you enjoy your job. Or if you'd rather just take more

vacations and work longer, that's cool too. Or if retiring

early is the only thing you think about then great, let's

look 100% go for that. You don't have to move to say a bigger

house and work really hard and more hours to help pay for that

bigger house if you're happy in your current home. There's no

right or wrong with any of this. There's just what would make you

both happy and what wouldn't, so clear your mind of those

supposed-to's as much as you can. The other point I'll give

you ahead of time is that goals are not at all to make you feel

like a failure. That's not the point of goals. They are to give

you a better chance of achieving something more quickly than you

otherwise would have without goals. So I've shared before how

goals used to petrify me. I don't want to fail, right? But

even the best goal setting gurus out there, they may hit 50 to

60% of their annual goals in the best of years. So we all set

tons of goals, we don't necessarily hit right away, but

we hit way more than we would have without them.

So last year, I wanted to travel as an example to five new

places. Five places I've never seen before in my life, and I

only traveled to two. However, if I didn't set that goal, I

probably would have traveled to zero new places last year. So

hopefully that helps you see what I mean here. I have a whole

episode on this topic, if you really want to dive into it

more. That's really how important I think goal setting

can be for you, and how happy you can be in your life, how

many things you can add to your happiness list that you

accomplish. So check out Episode 4.4, Schedule Goals, Achieve

Goals, if you really want the whole rundown.

Alright, so now let's jump into some of those points that I

promised you to get that goal conversation started. So number

one, it's pretty easy. What makes each of you happy now?

Now, this seems like an easy question. But it's a great point

to kind of start at to help build off of the today. You

know, what makes you happy today? Is it vacations? Is it

being home with family? Is it coaching? Is it going to Disney

World? Is it even just going to the park? So you know, for me,

when I sat down and did this, it was kind of harder than I

thought it was going to be. What actually makes me happy. And I'm

so involved in the day to day and going to work what actually

makes me happy today. And when I stopped and think thought about

kind of like the last year, it was visiting and traveling to

some new places. And you know, for my wife, Lauren, it was

coaching was her favorite thing to do. At the time she was a

teacher and going to Disney World, obviously. So you know,

when you stop and kind of think what actually has been making me

happy today, it may be a little bit of a harder exercise than

you you would think, but it does really help gain some clarity to

okay, if these things make me happy today, then obviously, you

know, I'd probably want to do more of these things.

The second question is, what would make you happier? So maybe

things that you're not necessarily doing today, but

things that if you could do them, it would make your life

better? So it's kind of like a building off of that first

question. So for Lauren, I had mentioned that she loved

coaching, she was a teacher at the time. And she wound up

getting an opportunity to make coaching and social media work

as well off of the coaching her full time job. So doing

something that she absolutely loved every day. She also set a

goal of one day getting a pool, because when she was growing up,

her parents had a pool and she just loved that as a kid. Those

are like some of her best memories growing up, where you

know, being in the pool and playing with friends. So she

wants to give that experience to our kids as well. And so that's

not something that we're doing right we had right now. But that

was something that would make her happier kind of a thing. Now

for me, it really made me think about what you know, what do I

want my business to be that I want one that kind of just went

you know, to maximize income? Or did I want one that really

maximize more living? And again, there's no right or wrong with

any of this. But for me, it was being home for dinner every

night and available to coach you know, soccer on the weekends or

softball, you know, all those things my kids would remember.

So that's kind of what we came up with, with, you know,

happier.

So the last question is what keeps you up at night? For some,

you know, it's really just not knowing what path they're on

that can be scary, right? Unknowns are scary unknowns are

scary. For others, it's a fear of saving enough for college.

This albeit is not yet as much fun of a question as the happy

question. But this can be keeping you back from feeling as

happy as you could be feeling. If you have anxiety over you

know what path you're on or anxiety that you aren't saving

enough or anxiety of what would happen to your kids if you or

your spouse died or became disabled or something like that,

well then that is weighing on you probably every single day.

And the great thing about this question is that these items can

generally be addressed pretty quickly and easily, especially

when you're young and healthy. Life or disability insurance for

example, can you remove anxiety over your family being

protected, just like that. Saving a little more every month

has as long as you know 30 years to grow and make just a huge

difference while you're young. So removing fears and sleeping

better at night can really often be easier items to check off

than you know some of the happier items that like for my

instance like a pool, you may have to ya know work a couple

years to go get that. Whereas life insurance, you could

probably get in a couple of weeks, and completely get rid of

that anxiety that's coming from it.

So goals overall can be things to add to your happiness, or

things that can also stop detracting from your happiness.

But the end result for both is more overall happiness. When you

have this list of goals, hang it up somewhere. That would be a

one of the first recommendations I would have for it, so that you

can look at it from time to time, I have my goal list right

on my cork board in my office. So I don't look at it every day.

But I see it, I glance at it now and then, and I check in with

Lauren about it every few months or check in with your spouse

about it every few months to kind of keep it in the front of

both of your minds. The more that you have it on your mind,

the greater chance again, of some of these goals being

achieved. And remember, if you achieve even one of those

things, I don't care if the list of goals is 10, or this list of

goals is 50. If you achieve even one of those things that you

hung up, now you're better than you were before. Your compass

has more of a route, your ship more of a direction. As you go

along the way, don't beat yourself up because they are

going to be delays. Again, we're not expecting all of these goals

to be completed in every year. So if you want to get a life

insurance evaluation by March, and it doesn't happen, that's

okay. Let's shoot for April now, or May. At least you have it on

your mind, and you're still much much more likely to achieve it

than before you set any goals at all.

Thanks so much for tuning in today, as always, and join us

for next week's episode called Pay Yourself First exclamation

point where we're going to talk about how you can work towards

having the funds to start achieving now some of these

goals that we just set and how the biggest problem most people

face is giving all their hard earned money away to other

people. So overall, if you're able to implement what we cover

today, that's fantastic. You have less to worry about than

before and you can focus more on enjoying life. If you're wanting

help with these things though or have any questions you need help

in clarifying, check out the ASK JOE section on the show's

website. www.enjoymore30s.com. That's enjoymore30s.com. Until

next week. Thanks for joining me today and I look forward to

connecting with you 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.