New Meetup: Visualizing Your Financial Success via SMART GOALS

The DC Chapter of Girls Just Wanna Have Funds is having their first meetup of 2009!  Check it out:

2009 is upon us and we’ve talked about goal setting being an integral part of achieving financial success. Specifically SMART goals:

Specific

WHAT are you going to do? Use action words such as direct, organize, coordinate, lead, develop, plan, build etc.

Measurable

Choose a goal with measurable progress, so you can see the change occur. How will you see when you reach your goal? Be specific! “I want to read 3 chapter books of 100 pages on my own before my birthday” shows the specific target to be measure. “I want to be a good reader” is not as measurable.

Attainable

A goal needs to stretch you slightly so you feel you can do it and it will need a real commitment from you. For instance, if you aim to lose 20lbs in one week, we all know that isn’t achievable. But setting a goal to loose 1lb and when you’ve achieved that, aiming to lose a further 1lb, will keep it achievable for you.

Realistic

For instance, it may be more realistic to set a goal of eating a piece of fruit each day instead of one sweet item. You can then choose to work towards reducing the amount of sweet products gradually as and when this feels realistic for you.

Be sure to set goals that you can attain with some effort! Too difficult and you set the stage for failure, but too low sends the message that you aren’t very capable. Set the bar high enough for a satisfying achievement!

Timely

Set a time frame for the goal: for next week, in three months, by fifth grade. Putting an end point on your goal gives you a clear target to work towards.

If you don’t set a time, the commitment is too vague. It tends not to happen because you feel you can start at any time. Without a time limit, there’s no urgency to start taking action now.

Time must be measurable, attainable and realistic.

Now it’s time to set those goals into action and the first step is to create a visual board with your top 5 financial goals for the year. Write down 5 financial and career goals you want to achieve this year. We will then discuss our goals and give each other advice and encouragement on how to achieve them.

We will make this meetup QUARTERLY (January, April, August, December) to assess progress towards our individual goals. So please commit to coming to future meetups under this topic to update us on your progress. In 2009 we’re all about accountability!

You can bring your own poster board, tapes, magazines.. I will have sheets available and glue, magazines.. However, please feel free to bring your own and if you have something to share.

If you’d like to join us, please check out our Meetup site here:  http://www.meetup.com/GirlsJustWannaHaveFunds/