We have been thinking a lot about our goals with the new year ahead.

Many of our goals are financial-based but it’s important to have goals all along the spectrum of life. Spiritual, emotional, physical, financial and relationship goals balance each part of life in turn. Knowing how to make goals is an integral part of keeping them. If a goal is wishy-washy or has an infinite time period in which it may be accomplished chances are it will be pushed aside for a more convenient moment and ultimately buried in the to-dos of life.

Jack Canfield’s book, The Success Principles, touches a lot on goals and is motivating and entertaining. It recommends writing your goals in the present tense and specifying the exact date and time the goal is accomplished.

For example: “I want to lose 10 pounds” is a vague goal that has no time-line. It sounds like work and is not inspiring.

“I am 150 pounds by June 12, 2012 at 9am,” is a much more exciting goal. It is specific and conjures the image of how you look and feel at your new weight.

You can even write how great you feel as part of your goal: “I am 150 pounds by June 12, 2012 at 9am and I feel strong, fit and healthy.”

The more descriptive you are, the better you can imagine your goal and the more likely you are to attain it.

Another book that is great for goal setting is Success Is Not An Accident, by Tommy Newberry. It suggests starting with a 10 year goal, a 5 year goal and a 1 year goal. From there you can break your goal into easy bite-sized steps. Again, it suggests being very specific.

Recently our friends recommended we make a dream board.

A dream board can be tag board or something similar on which you paste or tape photographs and pictures you’ve printed or cut out of magazines that represent the goals you wish to achieve.

For our dreamboard we used both photos and printed pictures and taped them to a gold piece of tag board. We hung it over the back of our couch in our bedroom, adjacent to our bed. Each evening when we go to bed we see it and every morning we wake up and see it. Our dream board has pictures of exercising, places we dream of visiting one day, a home with a pool and palm trees, specific rooms we’d like in our house (an office and a library) photographs of special memories that we’d like to recreate (like the natural, unmedicated birth of our daughter) and other pictures that represent our dreams. Some of these goals are monumental (having more children, living in a warm, sunny state, owning real estate) and some are simple, such as a piece of art that express our taste in decorating or owning a pair of Nike shoes we’ve always admired.

No matter what your goals are this year if you follow these simple steps you will be well on your way to making them come true:

-Write your goals down in detail in the present tense and with a specific date on which they are accomplished.

Start from 10 or 5 years away and work backwards, breaking down your goals into small achievable steps- although this may sound like a lot of work, your goals will not be life-changing or important enough for you to follow unless they are powerful enough to affect your future.

-Review your goals everyday.

The more you read them the more possible they will seem, especially if they are written in the present tense. Visualize your goals or create a dream board to display somewhere you will see it everyday- again, the more you review your goals them more powerful and real they will become.

-Talk about your goals to others who have similar goals.

When we first started talking about of goals to others we felt slightly silly and wondered if others might think we were being unrealistic or that we were reaching too high. The more we talked about them, though, the more we discovered that there are many, many people who have the same dreams we do, even friends and family close to us expressed thinking or wishing similarly. Ultimately our talking about our goals led to helpful resources, mentors and even writing this blog to share them with others. This week, write down your goals and talk openly about them to others. You never know what may open up.

An additional note from The Husband:

A few years ago, we sat down and made lists of goals. I wrote mine down and put them in the night stand next to the bed. I checked them regularly for awhile, but over time decided I could remember most of them and checked the list less and less regularly.

Recently, I pulled the list out and decided to rewrite and refine it.  I was surprised how much of my list I now wanted to change. For example: I knew when I wrote the original list I wanted to think of ways to expand my income to ensure that my wife could stay home with our (eventual) children. On my original list I wrote that one option I was going to seriously consider was going back to school to expand on my degree, making my skills more marketable. I’ve changed my mind about this. As I look at that goal now, rather than seeing increased marketability, I see increased debt, with only minimal increase in income to pay for it. Also, the increase in income would still be tied to how much I work. The idea of passive income is much more intriguing.

As 2012 begins I have created a whole new list of goals. Many of them are visible every day on our dream board. One of my new 2012 goals is to keep reading and learning about finances. Another new goal is to review my goals often. This combination will surely lead to changes to the rest of my goals.

Nothin’ wrong with that. -The Husband