Ah, welcome to the final, um, m webinar in my monthly webinar Series for 2024. And in keeping with being the end of the year, we're going to talk about financial goal setting. And the reason I put to suit you is because a lot of goal setting and I get questions, I get questions a lot about well, how much should I save this uh, month or how much do I need in retirement.
And a lot of it really depends on the individual and what you actually want to achieve in life and where you're headed and the kind of lifestyle you want. So that's what we'll start to go through in today's webinar. So I'm actually just going to do this so we don't have uh.
Oh, hang on. No, that's not working for some reason. Okay, so I'll do a little bit of an intro on myself. Um, for those who don't know me, my name is Alpha. Um, that is the name that I was born with. And I primarily help business owners but I work with um, individuals to help them manage their money.
So if a business owner has business finances that link to personal, a predominant focus is on the personal finance aside. And to be honest, the principles across both work in very much the same way. Um, but ultimately I, my mission in life is to help people understand their money a bit more and understand their lifestyle around that.
This is born out of a lot of my own journey, which I'll, I'll go into a bit here. Um, when I first started out I was a corporate tax accountant and um, you know, I studied accounting when working as a, as a tax accountant. But I realized there was so much more to it than that.
I was, I was witnessing my own journey and um, trying to figure out personal finances, which is why I then studied financial planning. But I realized there's a lot about just generally how we live our lives and how does money support that. And there's a lot of mindset that goes in with it too in terms of self worth that we attach to the amount that we have in our bank account, et cetera.
So personal journey met my own sort of personal development journey and money journey. And that's how I've ended up um, doing what I do now. And so that was me as a fresh faced, you know, accounting grad in my first real job. Um, and that was me a couple of years ago with my little girl.
We went to the Big Red Rock, as she calls it, um, Uluru. And it was so special to be able to have those experiences and have the sort of financial stability to be able to kind of just do the things we wanted, when we wanted because we were clear on what our lifestyle, um, wants to be.
Um, so, so I'm going to start with that lifestyle vision. So, um, before I hit record, I was speaking with, um, Adelia and we were talking about having that. A lot of the time we think of budgeting and money management as it's very micro and it's very much after the fact, after we've spent the money, after we've kind of just done things like day by day without a huge amount of intention behind it.
And I'm a big believer of once you have a vision and goals will support that vision and your money then has a purpose as a result, it makes it a lot easier to stick to and you start to become more proactive and intentional about your spending rather than just looking at it after the fact and going, oh, okay, that was a bit much.
I had a client recently and a, uh, family of three, so two adults and one little, little one. And they were spending about $20,000 a year on groceries and then about another 15,000 a year on takeout. And once they saw that, they were absolutely shocked. And then, uh, of that, about six grand just on takeout coffees.
And so that was a real sort of eye opener. And then we had to clarify what kind of lifestyle they actually. And it turns out both of them wanted to have like a career break at the same time so there'd be no income coming in. I was like, right, okay, well that's going to completely change how you budget and how you actually start to manage your money if that's what you actually want to do in your life.
So it starts to then adjust the goals that you have and then the plans you put in place. So it's very much have a vision, then you have your goals, and then you have your plans that actually help you achieve the goals which align to your vision. So everything kind of works in sequence and goes back and forth.
It's a bit like putting a puzzle together. And then we'll look at some end of year reflections. It's a perfect opportunity to do that. We just tend to kind of naturally have a bit of a, uh, bit of an energy lull as it comes into the holiday season. And it's a really good opportunity to allow some time to look back at what we've achieved.
And there's an awesome book that I love to read. I've actually, this year I don't know about it for the last two years over New Year's, I've read it. It's called the Gap and the Gain, um, co authored by dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy. It's a brilliant book.
If you haven't read it and if you have, look at it again over New Year's because, um, it's more meaningful at this time of year, I think. So what I'm going to talk about here then is the lifestyle vision. And what I've got here is a very sensory process.
Um, I do have an audio that goes with this, if you're interested, but it's very much about when do you want this particular lifestyle? And you can have two views. Like, I have vision boards and I have one for the current year and I have one for. In five years, and I have an idea of one for retirement that will probably shift and change as life changes.
I don't want to be. And these aren't visions that you literally are wedded to and you cannot do anything different. As we grow and evolve as humans, our visions for life and what we want grow and evolve with us. So at the moment, have a rough idea of when you want this particular vision that you're working on to manifest.
And then what does it look like? What does it feel like to you? And that's like, do you want to be able to have, um, you know, lots of tactile things around you want to be able to go into a garden where you can do some gardening and actually have the plants to, you know, dig your hands in the earth?
Um, what do you want to hear? Do you want to hear the sounds of the ocean? Do you want to hear the sounds of birds chirping in a forest? Do you want to hear city sounds? I once met somebody who said they couldn't sleep and they lived in New York City and they couldn't sleep unless they heard sirens and horns honking.
And I was like, oh, my goodness, that just doesn't work for me at all. But what. That works for them. So that's great, as long as we're aware of it. What does it smell like? Do we want to smell the ocean spray or do we prefer this particular tree in, um, the rainforests here in Australia where I live?
And, oh, that smell. As soon as I smell it, it instantly relaxes me. Do you want to be able to have that sort of smell around you? Taste. Do you want to be able to have restaurants and coffee shops near you? Do you want to be able to just enjoy that kind of Sensory experience as well.
And that combined forms a little bit more of the vision. And then how much money does that vision actually entail? Like what do you actually need to have? So if you're in a business, there's a business side, but the personal side there as well. And what you know, is it, you know, do you want private jets, do you want the big mansion, do you want, have a holiday home, do you want a yacht?
Or do you want to have a tiny home on a little block of land where you have solar panels, water, um, um, tanks and a little plunge pool? I follow this lady on Instagram and that's pretty much what she did. She was, it was documenting her journey of building her tiny home with her and her dog.
And it was just beautiful to watch. And it looked so peaceful and relaxing. And I mean, I don't have a huge house, but it's a lot bigger than that. And I was just like, oh, the cleaning that always seems to be dusting and vacuuming to do. And I was like, I could get a cleaner or a robo vacuum.
That's what I keep getting told to get a robo vacuum. Um, um, but it's, it's where, how, what sort of lifestyle do you want and then how much money do you need to support that? Because that then helps you actually clarify and articulate the goals that you want. And it makes a lot easier to budget as part of your plans in order to make that happen.
When you can see it, feel it, experience it, et cetera. If it's a lifestyle that you actually really connect with. Because I've seen so many decisions that people make, um, where they're like, oh, I bought this house, it's huge because I was, had a family come and stay. But then none of them wanted to travel.
It was always us traveling to them. So now they just have this big house to clean or a yard with no, no soil or dirt. It was literally just paved. And they wanted a garden like a veggie patch. It's like, well, you could go with the above ground ones, but it wasn't quite what they were after.
So it's being intentional. And where this comes to is helping clarify and improve the money relationship that we have. When we think about money as a relationship or something that we're in relation with, it's starting to become more well known. But when you think about the relationships that we have with our family, with our children, with friends, with colleagues, we, even if we don't actually do it, we're aware of the fact that they're relationships that we should probably cultivate and work on and give attention to, as with the relationship with ourself as well.
So money is a tool that helps us live the life we want, allow us to have the impact, allow us to give back. It's neither good nor bad. It's a tool, but it's. It's such an integral part of our lives that there is a relationship that we have with it.
And it's the, um. Excuse me. The goal is to get us more from that purple side to the green. Excuse me. So if we overwhelmed. And this. This doesn't relate just to money. This is life in general. If there's something that's overwhelming us, we tend to procrastinate because we're just so.
We're so in the realm of overwhelm, um, that we then don't make decisions. And then we might don't make decisions also because we're afraid of failing or making the wrong decision. And I see this happen a lot with money. We don't make a decision because we're afraid of losing money or looking stupid or doing something that's not right.
And then we get frustrated with the fact that we're not doing anything. And then we go back to overwhelm because all of this just perpetuates itself. Where we're trying to get to is just have more knowledge and more awareness so we can have a bit more confidence. And it doesn't have to be super amount of confidence.
I read a book once called Be Seen by Jen Gottlieb, and she was referring to the 51% rule, which is if you have just a bit. If you're a bit more confident than not, it's better than. You don't have to be 100% because, uh, not many of us are 100% confident before we do something.
So it's just having a little bit more confidence than lack of confidence to actually spur us into action. And as soon as we start taking actions and we can make decisions and we get into the habit of making decisions, even if they're just small ones, even if it's just, you know what?
This is the year I'm now going to split out my expenses, so it's easier for me to manage. I have my expenses split up. And I literally just the other day thought, I don't actually have one specifically for my daughter. And I've got school fees, then there's activity fees and other things.
And at the moment I've just kind of like bundled them under bills. And I thought, I think I actually need to have a separate account for her, because there's so many other things to manage, and I do some investment for her as well. So I was like, you know what?
I actually need to separate my money out a little bit more granular. And so I have that as well. So that was just a tiny action that I had to take. But it feels really good. I've, um, made a decision, and I took the action. And part of it is learning, because I've been running my money system now for a while, but I'm still, still learning.
We're all growing and evolving and figuring out what works best for us. And then the ultimate goal then, is to have peace and happiness, which, from my perspective. I think is what we're all really after. And then we go back into confidence. And the thing is we're not going to stay on one side of this, um, scale to the other all the time.
Sometimes when we're up leveling, especially something we're learning, something new. If we're starting to get into investing, it's overwhelming because there's so much choice. So we don't do anything and then we don't make any decisions because we're afraid of losing money. And then we get frustrated. And sometimes that frustration can actually fuel some action, whether it's going into to learning about it, um, then being, making a decision, taking a bit of action and then eventually the confidence will grow, especially when we reaffirm to ourselves that we can actually do the things that we say we're going to do.
So that's a little bit of the background of it. And I think it's important to lay that as a foundation, um, before we actually start to delve into the goals. So as part of the goal making process, it's also really important to look at what worked and what didn't work.
So if you have a pen and paper, if you want to do this along with me, or you can watch the replay and do this in your own time, but I highly recommend pen and paper or well, you can type it if you like. But there are studies that show that as soon as we use our thumbs and that brain to pen connection, it's quite powerful.
So what are you most proud of this year? You can write that down, you can share it in the chat if you would like. Um, I just have to figure out how to find where the chat box has gone because here we are. Okay. Just to make sure I'm still.
Oh, now I think I have. I stopped sharing. No, somehow my screen has gone. Okay, I'll go back to. I can't seem to have the chat at the same time. Um, so what you're most proud of. And then if you had goals for the last, the last 12 months or 20, 24, which of those did you hit?
And it doesn't matter if it's none because sometimes like there's some goals that I set for myself this year that I didn't hit. And looking back, I'm actually glad that I didn't because I've learned so much more. And now some of those goals, I'm like, I, uh, don't actually want to achieve those anymore.
Others are going, no, they're going on my list for next year. But now I'm a lot clearer because of all the things that have happened, this. So it's. It's okay to. To not hit things, but it's just acknowledging why it didn't happen. And awareness is the, uh, biggest sort of.
It's the biggest opening to. To make positive changes that there is. So did you start doing something this year that you want to keep doing? If so, write that down. Uh, are there things that you learned in 2024 about yourself and specifically around money? Did you learn something? Like, as an example, one year I was having a conversation with my dad, and he and I have, you know, we're.
We' planes a lot of the time, but we had a really good conversation around money and saving. Um, this was a number of years ago now. Um, but because I've always been really good at saving, and he's always tried to push me into buying property, and he's like, well, I can't save.
So for me, I will if I have an agreement with a bank, because I have to pay the house off. That's my way of saving. It's like a forced saving. I was like, oh, I'd never really thought about that. So I've actually woven a lot of that into discussions I have with my clients.
And it's actually amazing how many people are like that. Um, whereas I hadn't thought about it that way because that's not how I am. So if you start to look at things like that, it becomes. You're like, okay, well, now that I know how I operate, I can start to adjust my goals to suit that.
And some of your favorite memories, and some of these may have nothing to do with money. Some of them may do. This year, one of my favorite memories was being able to go to New Caledonia with my mom for her 80th birthday. And my daughter came along as well.
Thankfully, we were there before a lot of the, um, unrest happened. Um, but it was so special because she's been talking. My mum likes to turn 80. She's been talking about this for about a decade. And we finally did it. She's still in good enough hell. She's still quite physically able and mentally able.
I thought, let's do it now. This is a milestone. It's worth celebrating the fact that she's gotten to this age and the kind of health that she is. Let's do that. And we had the financial resources to be able to do it. And so that is one of my favorite memories.
To have been able to share that experience with my mom and my Daughter, what do you want to leave behind in 2024? Are there some habits or some people or some situations that you really want to adjust even sort of the way a relationship is? Do you want to be able to improve it?
And if it's your relationship with money in general, then make that intention and go, I am going to intentionally improve my relationship with money. You can set some goals for that as well. And they can just be little steps. It can just be as simple as I'm going to be an intentional spender, an intentional saver.
Every time I go to spend, I'm going to ask myself, once I have my vision, does this bring me closer or further away from my vision? If the answer is further away from, doesn't mean you can't do it. You just need to make sure you're doing it. Awareness. And if the intention is this is going to get me closer, then great.
And that way it doesn't feel like so much denial because that's, it's, you know, I feel like money and food are, ah, very similar when we go on a diet. And I remember a few years back I was like, oh, you know, I will get healthy. Or, you know, I signed up for this program that had exercise as well as, like a diet type program.
And I actually still do the exercise side, uh, which has probably been about three years now. But the diet part lasted about a month because it was so different from how I normally eat. And I constantly felt like the portions were tiny and it was food. Like, I don't like tofu.
I'm a vegetarian, but I don't like tofu. And there was lots of that in there. I'm like, I don't even like this food. So I didn't stick to it. So it's like, how. How do we want to see the food that we're consuming or the money that we're consuming with as well?
And what do we want to be able to take into the next year that we can sustain? Because that's the other thing too. We don't want to set these goals and plans and then get a month or two in and then everything falls apart. Sometimes that happens because something else kind of gets in the way.
I had a few disrupts this year. My dad's been in poor health, so it's kind of thrown me out a little bit, um, in terms of achieving some of the things because I just didn't have the time to do it. Um, but I can pick them up next year.
And then what do you, what did you Plan for. Like I said in 2024, that didn't happen. So it's important to do this as a bit of a review leading into the goal setting next time, because it's not a matter of. It's not a task list. It's not just a shopping list of the things that I should be doing.
It's actually evaluating what you really want to do, what's aligned with you, and then how things have gone in the past to how you might need to make some changes to support the future that you want. So celebrate your wins. If you have three wins, or at least a top one from the last year, please write that down.
And I'm, I'm, um. I don't know if I can grab the chat here if you're willing to share, but I don't seem to be able to get both up at the same time, unfortunately. Hang on, here we go. Let's see if I can do that. Oh, I can. So if you'd like to put it in the chat, feel free to.
So now, planning for the coming year, what do you want to stop doing? So what is it? That is, goodness me. Having some technical difficulties today. Um, so what do you want to stop doing in the coming year? Very, uh, similar to what we were talking about just before.
And then what do you want to start doing? Do you want to start, um, splitting up how you. Your bank accounts and figuring out how you want to split them up? You know, having an emergency fund, having a fun, fun, Having a, um, travel fund, if that's different from your fun fund.
Do you need a new car? Do you want to maybe try and buy things rather than put them on credit? Um, and using your money that way so you pay less and you're paying off debt or doing some investing, whatever it happens to be, making sure that you're clear about what that is and what you want to start doing that you haven't started yet?
And if you're thinking about the coming year, is there something about this year that gets you excited? Do you have a family reunion to look forward to? Do you have a holiday planned? And if you don't, then at least even just a small one's important to have on the horizon?
Um, and if there's an income or a revenue number that you want to go for, and if you couldn't fail, if you feel like there's no ceiling, what would that number be for you? And I say that because quite often I get, oh, you know, I, you know, I had a client once, and she's like I just couldn't seem to break into six figures.
No matter what job I had, it was always just under. And I was like, uh, okay, well let's work on that. And it's interesting, the stories that we tell ourselves about what is and isn't possible. So I encourage you to dream because without that, we're just going to stay where we are right now.
And if you love, if that where you are right now is good, then that's totally okay. But if it's not and you want something a little bit more, then dream for it. So this is where bring us brings us to future gazing. Imagine we're 12 months in the future now, and you're looking back over 20, 25.
And you can actually physically. And they do this, um, technique in NLP where you actually take yourself physically out of the present time. If you imagine timeline like this, take yourself up, you're still here, obviously in the present, but you're just imagining yourself and you float over into the future.
It could be behind you, could be beside you, wherever it happens to be for you. And then you down and you're looking over the year and what would it look like? And success doesn't have to mean that you reached a certain savings, investment or income target. It could just mean that you, you spent some more time with yourself, you've been able to travel somewhere you wanted to go, you learned a hobby that you wanted to learn whatever it is that would make you feel like the year had been worthwhile and doing that.
And so then you can come back into the present and be intentional about making that happen and build that into your goals. I remember it was a number of years ago now and I wanted to learn. I know it sounds weird, but I wanted to learn how to hand make books.
And so I took a class and then I practiced. And I can still do it to this day. I don't do them very often. Um, but whenever my daughter's school has like a market stall, I'll hand make some books. And um, and I stitch them together and I have the, I have the string and I cover it in beeswax to strengthen it and instant.
And you get a bit creative and it's lovely. I don't get to do it very often. I did it a lot more when I was single. Um, but it's still nice to know that I can if I want to. And um, it was a goal I'd set for myself because I'd seen my grandfather had a book like that and I thought, geez, they're so beautifully bound.
And I love the stitching on the side. And so I learned how to do it, and that felt like success for me that year because I learned how to make books. So if you're in business looking at your business model, I will cover this off in case anyone, um, watching is in business.
But it's looking at the products and services that you offer and streamlining them to be considered consistent with your vision as well. And then how you deliver them. Are they delivered in person? Are they delivered online? What price are you going to sell it for? Um, how many of them do you want to be able to sell?
And then what revenue will that leave for you? And then you can total that up at the end, and you can see, okay, is that a revenue number that. That I'm happy with. Is it potentially, um, doable? I don't really like the word realistic, but is it, is it possible?
And if it isn't, what do I need to do to make it possible? And even if it is, what do I still need to do in order to actually hit these targets? So it's important to be able to have break it down this way because otherwise it's just an arbitrary number.
People come up with the whole, oh, I want to. I want to make, you know, six figures. I was like, all right, well, there's a lot of six figures between, you know, beginning of six figures and seven figures. Where do you want to be in that scale? And what do you need to do in order to incrementally build up to that?
Because sometimes it can be a lot more difficult than you think, or sometimes you might get there easier than you think. So it really is depending on what you want. But ultimately this is, this is the structure. So it's the vision which we've spoken about, the goals which we'll start to go through a bit more detail.
And I've deliberately got here, um, five, if there's any more. You can have like your top three and also deliberately have the three at the top here. It's difficult for our brains to really hone in on anything more than that because it just becomes overwhelmed. You know, if we think of.
I store my. My husband and I have this little funny thing. If we go into the grocery store and, um, any more than three things, I've got to write it on a post it. And the same thing for me as well as, like, if I have three things, I can remember that, um, when, by the time I get to the grocery.
But if I have literally a fourth thing, I'll have forgotten all of them. It's not like I forget the first. I remember the first three and forget the fourth. I remember any of them. So any more than three things our brain finds it diffic to really clutch onto. So have your five and then have your top three.
And things may shift and move around the year as well, depending on the opportunities that come up too. Um, so have you have your top five with a prioritized top three. And from that you then will take those individual goals and then you'll start to make your plans. And your plans are more like a task list of things that you actually have to do.
Some of them will be sequential. I'm, um, just trying to think of things like, for instance, when I was making books, I had to first, you know, I had to get the materials. I couldn't actually start the stitching until I'd actually got the materials. I'd covered the covers or I'd chosen the paper to cover the covers with.
It had dried completely and then I could. So there was a step by step process. Some things are sequential, other things you can do in parallel. Like I constantly talk about wealth, um, in motion, which is very much like you pay off your debt, you invest and you save, and you put money away for retirement, all in parallel.
And it's important to then know where your money is going. And that money then has a very defined purpose. So things can be done in parallel or sequential. So what are your goals? Um, and their goals are. And this is. I had, I looked this up. So I thought, I'm curious as to, as to what the actual word goals even means.
And the way it was defined when I looked at was ideas of the future or a desired result. So it could be an idea or a result, uh, that you can actually then put into plan to commit to achieve. So there's commitment there. So it's an idea or a result.
And then you put a plan in place to actually commit to it. And then the achievement part comes, but the commitment part is really important. So there's no point writing out your goals if they're not things that you're actually willing to commit to doing. So for instance, when I was studying, um, I was very focused on finishing within a shorter timeframe.
So I used to forego going out with friends on Saturday night sometimes because I would study for the entire weekend. Um, not all the time, but occasionally that would happen and I had savings targets. So when I finished my first university degree, I wanted to travel for three months.
So I had a certain amount of money that I wanted to save. So I still went out, but I used to eat before I went out. So I'd still go out with my friends and I might have like an orange juice or something like that. So I'd keep the cost of the outing really low.
Um, so I would still be able to be social. But I was very, very focused on saving the certain amount of money that I needed or that I thought I needed in order to travel for three months without working. So it's, it's. What are you willing to do for that commitment as well?
And sometimes there's. I hesitate, use the word sacrifices, but sometimes there's things that we might forego in order to achieve that, but we don't feel like we're missing out because in my case I had this amazing trip which happened by the way, that, uh, three months I actually did a little bit of work because I decided an opportunity arose while I was there to do a bit of work.
Um, but it was, it was fantastic. I had the, it was the most personal growth trip. I was traveling around the world on my own, visiting some friends or family friends or on my own entirely. And I learned so much about myself and I'm glad that I had the freedom to do that.
And I didn't feel like I sacrificed any of my life leading up to that to save up for it. So it depends what's important to us. And the other part of the definition that I found was objectives or targets that you try to reach or achieve. I find that one a little bit less connectable.
But I like the idea of ideas and um, results and then aims or objectives that you work toward with effort and determination. Now we often have the words like being committed or effort or determination, they feel quite heavy words. But when it's linked to your vision and that vision will actually lift you up so that it doesn't feel like hard work, it doesn't feel like sacrifice, it feels just like part of your journey and the path that you need to take and the things that you need to do in order to get where you want to go.
And when you're clear on that, it just makes, it doesn't make it effortless, um, but it makes it a lot less heaviness of effort. And so that when you're faced with a decision it becomes easier. And let me tell you, it's interesting. When you become really clear on where you're headed, distractions tend to just fall away.
Either you don't see them or they don't get presented to you. Because people are so clear. Because you're clear on what it is that you're doing and that clarity is it sort of, I don't know, creates a certain degree of support that people are able to give you as well.
And when you verbalize it, it becomes even more powerful. I remember years ago I was working, I was working in accounting still and I was absolutely miserable. I'd been there for. I'd been doing that same role that I was in at that point for about four years. I really didn't enjoy it anymore and I got incredibly frustrated one night at dinner with friends and just like blurted out, I was like.
And I was a very self contained person in my 20s. I didn't want to burden anybody else with any of my Stuff, but I'd reached my, my, my frustration, overwhelm, limit. And I just blurted it out. And seriously, that was life changing because a friend at that dinner knew of another friend whose business, whose company that she was working for, was looking for somebody doing something similar to what I said I wanted to do.
And so my whole career changed, complete trajectory. And, and it was, it was the best decision. It was a, uh, it was a risk, but it was the best decision that I ever made because it helped get me where I am today. So it's really interesting when we start to clarify what it is that we want and we can verbalize that obviously to the right people.
If you've got like real naysayers and glass half empty people in your life, you might want to limit how much you tell them. Uh, my grandmother was one of those. I used to tell her after I'd made decisions because she would do her best to talk me out of everything.
She was born in 1920 in Vienna, so a very tumultuous time and place in history. So fear ruled her world and I didn't want it to rule mine. So I never used to tell her a lot of things as I was thinking or doing them. So you do sometimes have to curate who you share these things with.
So now get out your pen and paper. Uh, you can either do this now or let some of this marinate and write out what are the five things that you really want to achieve next year? What are some outcomes that you want? Do you want to write a book?
Do you want to do some sort of training or some sort of qualification? Um, do you want to change jobs? Do you want to start a business? Do you want to take on staff if you already have a business? Like what, what are the five things? Now keep it to five and then number them in order of priority.
Um, um. I literally have just done this process myself recently and it is super powerful because the person that I did it with, she's like, okay, well what are your top three? Like, if the other two didn't happen, I was like, oh. And the things that I thought were the priority actually weren't.
The one that I thought was my number one ended up actually being my number five. When I really started to distill down what can I actually control and what do I actually really want that's going to shift the dial in my life to get me closer to the lifestyle vision that I have.
And as soon as you put it in that context, makes it a lot easier. So for now, write down what Those what those actual goals are and these boxes under here. And you can do it. If you're a visual person and you want to write it out first, get out some post IT notes and start to write it down.
You can actually put it on the wall. I used to be a facilitator, so I love post it notes. I've always got like, I don't know, I've got star shaped post IT notes. I've star. I think my daughter's taking my star ones, but I have lots of different colored post IT notes.
Um, and I just, I like post it noting things. I have my whiteboard and I like to see it up first and then I put it down on the computer because it's just feels more tangible. So if you need to do that or if you prefer to use other software like Notion or Trello, whatever, you can do that too.
Or Excel. I use Excel as well, but. Right. Get clear on what those five non negotiables are going to be for you for 2025. And if some of them might take a little longer to achieve, that's okay. Um, that's where your goal. Sorry, where your um, plans start to come into it.
What do you need? But you have to make sure that every single one of these goals and you can test it. You're like, will this goal help me achieve the vision that I came up with? Yes. Great. It stays there. Does this one help me achieve the goal that.
Sorry, the vision that I came up with? No. Okay, let's park it for now. I'll create another one. Let's move on to the next one. And then once you've done that first test, then you prioritize them and then you can start to write out the actual plans, the tasks that you need to do in order to actually achieve each of those goals.
So you can then, if you want to do it in this way. I like to break it down in terms of time frame because whenever I've done this exercise without doing this, I found everything seems to get bunched up. In the one sort of month I'm like, suddenly I want to achieve all of this by the end of March.
I'm like, oh, that's not very realistic. When I look at how many hours in a day I've got, um, I need to actually spread it out a little bit. Or maybe some things will take a little bit longer, especially if they involve somebody else or if there's a. Ah, you know, there might not be.
If you're applying for another job, there might not be another job in the market at that particular moment. So suddenly your deadline of the end of January might not be as realistic. It might need to be March, but that doesn't mean that you can't keep searching in that in the meantime.
And if you start to verbalize it, you never know, somebody might just offer you something or mention something completely out of the blue. But we have to have a guideline to work to. So this is where break it down into quarters. So I've actually done financial year, uh, here, which is in Australia, but you can do this any which way.
So if you start with your January to quarter, and you can shift this around, but put it down, the tasks that. Need to do or. And the throw back in the outcomes you need to achieve in each of those quarters. Write it all down and make it clear. Like I've actually got mine, I've started to create here.
Um, and then I'll. I'll do it in the quarters once I've listed everything out. So you can list everything out first, put some dates to it, then you can look at on a map. You can even have. I have one of these big whiteboard things that have the calendar already on it.
Most stationary stores have those. If you want to be able to see everything, it's. It's quite large. Um, if you want to do it that way, that's okay as well. However you visually like to operate, do you want physical or do you. Okay with something electronic on, you can put it as a background on your computer screen.
So in order to support. So once you. So this, this exercise in itself takes a bit of time. The thing that needs to then happen to help support that. So we've got your vision, your goals and then your plans. So your tasks. Sometimes what we need to realize is that for if we're making some changes in our life, we have to work on our habits.
So our habits will help support us to make sure that we're actually focusing on the right things. So if you think about what it is that you do on a regular basis, you can go through your day. Like when you first wake up in the morning, what do you do?
For me, I actually have this sort of little thing that I say to myself. And I literally anchor my feet on the ground very intentionally, swing both legs out of bed and put both of them on the ground at the same time. And I have a mirror. So I usually have a mirror.
And I have this little mantra that I say and that I have a drink of water because I've always got water near me. And that's how I start my day. I then open all the windows, I get some fresh air, I go stand outside because sunlight and some vitamin D for a good 10 minutes.
And in the morning is the best time because you're less likely to get burned. Especially in Australia, where I come from. If it's too cold outside, then try and find a sunny spot in your home. Um, and get some vitamin D. They're really good ways to anchor and start your day.
Um, and also help uplift your mind a bit. Especially mind you here if you're in the northern hemisphere, I don't know how much sunshine you might be getting right now. So if you've got lamps that will do that as well. Then do that. Um, so then write down. So write down, day by day, what are the things that you do repeatedly?
When do you brush your teeth? When do you take your vitamins? If you take vitamins, um, how do you spend your morning if it's sitting on your phone scrolling? Maybe not so great. Before bed, try and avoid blue light, which is like your phones and your iPads and that.
About an hour before bedtime. Reading. Um, when do you. Do you get a chance to read a book? What are the things that you want to do that you aren't doing at the moment because your habits aren't supporting you? The other thing I do is I put all of my exercise gear.
Like I go for bike rides probably three times a week and I do Pilates. I've got a reformer machine at home. And you got very little sunlight. Yeah. So I don't know if you have sunlight lamps. I remember I was. I was, um, staying with some. A friend of mine in Japan and she had a sunlight lamp.
I don't know if that's still a thing. Um, but if you. If you can. If you. Great. If you can't, well, then you can't. Um, so, yeah, so I put all my exercise gear out, like, out. So that when I'm on the ground and I see. I was like, oh, there's my exercise gear.
I put that on. I've got my helmet and my water bottle and everything already at the back door. I try and remove as many obstacles to me going for a bike ride as possible. I've trained my husband and my daughter to don't ask me anything until I've come back from my bike.
R. And then they usually don't want to because I'm very. It's very hot and humid here at the moment, so I'm obviously surprised. Like, I'm going for a shower before you ask me anything else. And I've got everything ready the night before. So I try and do things to remove as many obstacles as possible to do the things that I want to do.
Um, and if I. Because I make my own sourdough bread and so I have to make the starter the night before. So during the day I actually put the things out to remind me to make the starter because sometimes I'll wake up in the morning and go, oh, I forgot to make starter last night.
So I can't do the bread today, I have to do it tomorrow and I might not necessarily be able to. So I try and plan some of These things a little bit ahead. I use post it notes, I put reminders in my phone, I put in my calendar. There's so many different ways that you can do it these days.
Um, yeah, so I have a handout. I'll, I'll, um, I'll work on getting that to you. Uh, so I have it to audit. If you look at your list of habits, and this is if you've ever read James Clear's Atomic Habits, he does this, which I thought was really interesting because I'd already been doing this.
But um, if you grab his book, if you haven't already, he um, actually has some tables to help you with this. But I generally just find a pen and paper. You just write out a list of your habits and then you can look at the ones that are helpful and the ones that hinder, um, and you can actually even write that.
Or you can use different colored highlighters, you can use green for, you know, helpful habits and you can use orange or whatever color comes to you as a, uh, as a hindering. You go, now this is hindering me achieving my lifestyle and doing what I want to do. These can be money habits.
They can also just be general habits. It's, it's quite easy to, to do sort of more holistically at first. But even if you're in the habit of when a bill arrives, you just go, oh, a bill. Rather than going, oh, okay, all right. This service that I've signed up for and I know I can pay for has just arrived.
Great, I expected this. I'm just going to pay it. So it's a totally different energy. Even my physiology changed. Like, I sit up straight, I'm like, okay, this is cool, I got it. You know, if that's, if even just the way you think about and feel towards a habit, sorry, uh, towards a bill, then you need to make sure that you shift it.
Uh, again, being aware and conscious of things makes all the difference. And then you can also identify a reward, um, that's worth helping you in order to achieve the habit. Do you, And I'm not necessarily talking about like my reward would often be chocolate, but I try and not make it a habit that is actually not going to really help me, especially if I'm trying to remain healthier and um, on my low sugar.
So if it's a, you know what I'm going to. And I don't even like to use things like self care like massages because to me they're just maintenance. They should just happen anyway. Maybe it's Just an outing of some sort. And it might not have to even cost anything.
Or it could be, let's go to the movies or, you know, have something to look forward to, um, to reward yourself. But make the habits that you want to keep, like I said, as easy as possible to do. And you can habit stack, which is something that James Clear talks about as well.
Like I, like I said, I always have. Water is like one of my primary habits. So if I need to remember to do something like, I'll put a note next to my water. Um, I had to turn the sprinklers on and off because our timer stopped working. So I actually put the poster next to my water because I was like, well, I now take a drink of water and then I'll remember to turn the sprinklers off.
Um, so you can do things like that, um, and make them. Make the habits that you don't want to keep as difficult. So for instance, um, you can not have the food in the house if it's particularly food related or, you know, take some of the apps off your phone or take the, um, what do you call it?
The notifications off, um, unsubscribe from a lot of databases. Like, you know, we've just had Black Friday and Cyber Monday, um, and holy moly, the literally like barrage of buying emails and text messages that have come through. If you don't want to have those come your way because you don't want to be tempted, then just remove yourself from those lists.
If there's certain people that you want to stay on the list of, do that. But don't be afraid to just go, you know what, I don't even want the temptation. I should be stronger than that. Yeah, you know what, we're human. So just take yourselves off those databases if that's, if that's going to help you stay more financially on track.
So again, we break it down and I like to look at 90 days. 90 days. It used to be 30, then it was 60. Now it's more like 90 days to focus on a habit or to get a habit, um, become more of a ritual. Um, we have so much distraction in our world that it takes a bit longer to do these things now.
So what are the key money habits that you want to focus on over the next 90 days? So in January, pick three. In January, there could be the same three each each year. But if you want to have some that focus a bit more on. And it could just be nuances, it could literally just.
And building on it, it could Be, um, exercise every two days. And February could be exercise three days a week, March exercise four days a week. But the core habit of the exercising is still there. You're just dialing it up. Or it could even be. I remember I used to have, um, when I'm riding my bike, like, which gear that I'm in when I go up a hill.
I was like, oh, I'm going to be in the, you know, fifth gear. By this month I'll be in sixth gear. And by this month I'll be in seventh gear. Of course, there's things like wind. Um, I live near the ocean, so, um, wind resistance becomes an issue some.
Sometimes I'm like, jesus, is so hard. And then on the way back, I was like, oh, this is a lot easier. I'm like, because the wind's with me now, not against me. So you can take those things into account. And then what are some of the key mindset habits?
So with, um, like money habits could be paying a bill as soon as you get it or by paying it before the due date. Um, a mindset habit could be how you feel about the bill when it arrives and how you think about it. Like, if you think of repetitive thoughts.
There's so much that was ingrained in us when we were children. You know, the money doesn't grow on trees or, you know, rich people are evil or, uh, whatever it happened to be. If you're aware of them, you can start to work on those and start to notice your vernacular, the words that you are using.
I know I've had to be very careful of that when I talk to my daughter about money, especially when it's me saying no to something because there's so many things in the shops these days, you know, oh, mama, can I have this? Oh, it's only $2. I was like, yes, but the amount of little, only two dollar things which literally just end up in the trash.
It's just, you know, it's not because we can't afford it. It's just because is it really worth while spending the money on this thing that you're going to completely not be interested in in an hour? So it's, it's trying to understand. So I have to work on my language and quite a lot with her and how, uh, she perceives it as well.
So that's, that's always a work in progress. So there was a lot there. And I want to leave a little bit of time for Q and A as well. So we talked about how to build your lifestyle vision and then how to take that vision and align it to the goals, like the key five things with, uh, in order, priority order that you want to achieve in 2025.
And then what are the plans or tasks under each of those goals that you actually need to do in order to help you achieve the goal which aligns with your vision? And you can check it back and forth as well. And as you're living the year, you can go back and review it and go, okay, well, I'm, um, not as aligned with this goal anymore, actually now feeling, leaning more into this one.
So do what feels right for you at the time, know what you think you should do, what actually feels right for you, regardless of what anybody else says. And then end of year reflections looking at how you actually did in the year, how you want your year ahead to be.
