Are you sick of setting financial goals each year but still nothing changes? Truth is, we have all been there. According to a 2014 article written by Time magazine, almost no one follows through on their New Year’s resolutions – no matter what the goal is. Furthermore, the article cited a survey from author of Change Anything, Joseph Grenny which revealed that half of Americans give up on their goals within 30 days and 75% give up within three months. Perhaps most interesting, 77% have made the same resolutions each of the last five years.

So, why do we continue setting goals if they don’t work?

Psychologists say that goal setting makes us feel good. However, if these feelings don’t result in success, it’s merely a short-lived endorphin ride. If financial goal setting hasn’t been working for you, I have another idea in mind: stop setting goals and start scheduling actions to manage your money.

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Let me explain.

Let’s say that you’ve had a goal to open a savings account and save $1,000 by the end of the year, but you just haven’t been able to do it.  Here’s what you do instead: schedule a date to accomplish the first action that your goal requires, in this case, it’s opening the account. After that, schedule your first action towards the goal, “On May 31st, I will open a savings account with $100.”  Schedule this action like you would with any event in your calendar. Send yourself alerts, alarms, and reminders if you need to.

Once you’ve made your first deposit, schedule another deposit in your calendar for a future date. How you proceed next is up to you. I suggest figuring out how many more times you need to make an action appointment in your calendar to reach your $1,000 goal. If not, don’t worry about it. Keep scheduling small actions, carrying out the action, and then setting up more future actions. Of course, if you’ve gotten this far, you could simply automate deposits to your account and that will make your life a lot easier.

Scheduled actions can make it easier to manage your money because it’s a specific thing to do rather than a lofty, future-oriented goal. Isn’t it easier to act on what you might accomplish next week or month than what you might accomplish at the end of the year?

What if you don’t reach the original goal? That’s quite fine. This method is for people who’ve been setting overarching goals but haven’t been able to reach them at all. If action scheduling ends up working for you, the important thing is that you are moving forward.

Don’t over think your scheduled action. Determine what you want to change in your financial life and then schedule it. If there is a financial goal that you’ve been trying to achieve over and over again without success, schedule an action instead.

 

Miranda Reiter is a certified financial planner and founder of She & Money Financial Planning. She helps women develop a game plan for financial success so that they can stop feeling broke, meet their goals, and live the life they truly deserve. Get her free audio training on debt elimination here.

 

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