Why Your Financial Goals Could Be Holding You Back

If you’ve been following me here for a while you know that I like to share frugal living tips that have worked for my family. Although the internet is saturated with personal finance advice from experts and bloggers, I find that there’s always something new to learn. The other day I was thinking about where I’m at financially. Am I as far along as I hoped to be by this age? What areas am I still struggling with? The point wasn’t to beat myself up, but to reevaluate what is and what isn’t working. I started crunching numbers and readjusting my financial plan and setting new goals.

However, I found that one key element was missing from all of my notes and number crunching. My why.

Why am I doing this?
Why do I want to do this?
Why is living like no one else worth it?

I have a general idea of what I want my financial future to look like, but I’ve put so much focus on my financial goals that I lost sight of the bigger picture. I know what debt I want to pay off. But what’s the purpose? And what’s going to motivate me to reach my goals? Now I want you to ask yourself these same questions. It’s easy to get caught up in the frugal living lifestyle because we are barely scraping by or perhaps because we have some debt to pay off. You make several financial goals and work hard to achieve them, but then what. Why are you doing it in the first place?

Personally, I found that I needed to truly focus on this particular question if I wanted to make any real financial progress. I have paid of debt because I want to be debt-free. I started two different businesses in order to continue paying off our debt and have more financial freedom. But what is the ultimate goal? Why am I staying up late at night working and choosing to drive an old car that has seen better days? Yes, I want to be debt-free and have some money in the bank, but that’s not certainly not what drives me.

In order to figure out your why, I encourage you to sit and answer the following:

What drives me?
If money was not an issue, what would I do?
Where would I live?
What would my career be?

In my case, my family is what drives me. If money was not an issue I would travel around the world with them and we would live in Hawaii. I would continue to write, but it would be focused on my travel adventures. Sounds crazy, but I know it’s not impossible. I know that it’s attainable if I work hard.

That is my why. That’s what is going to drive me to push harder, and live like no one else. It’s not seeing my debt zeroed out, although that can be fun. It’s not seeing money sitting in my bank account nor having the ability to buy what I want. It’s knowing that I want to experience the world with my family and making frugal living a way of life, will help me get there faster.

Why Your Financial Goals Could Be Holding You Back:

Financial goals are great, but once you achieve them you have nothing else to look forward to. You’ll find yourself looking for the next thing to mark off your list and eventually your goals will get smaller. Instead figure out your why and be brave enough to make your dreams a reality.

What is your why? Are you brave enough to dream big and work hard to achieve it? I’ve shared mine and would love to hear from you.