The Simple Steps to Tackling a Financial Goal | Chalene Johnson Official Site (2024)

I’m sure you have a large goal in your life that you want to accomplish, but you have no clue where to start. It may be starting a business, or finding a way to change your job because currently you just don’t love it. Maybe you have student loan debts or credit card debt, or you want to learn to budget your money. I’ve been there, and while I wanted to make a change, I had no clue how to get started. Hopefully I can help you with this advice.

First write down what your big goal is. If you want to start a business, tackle debt, or budget money, you’d write that down. Looking at that goal it’s probably pretty overwhelming or scary. The idea of saving money for retirement or learning how to make the most out of your paycheck is daunting because you’re only looking at the big picture. Now that you’ve got all these thoughts in your head, instead of going crazy and walking away, write them all down. Write down whatever comes to mind, whether it’s “how am I going to do this?” to “What is my total debt?” Getting it all out on the page gets you one step closer to completing the task.

Now that you’ve spent about thirty minutes writing everything out, go through each item and ask yourself “can this be done in 10 minutes?” If the item can be done in ten minutes that’s great! If it takes more than 10 minutes break it down further. What else needs to be done? If a task on your list is to “set up a budget” it could be broken down into things like researching what a budget is, different methods to budget, and budgeting apps. Breaking a big task up into smaller ones will make it easier to manage, and will become less overwhelming.

Once each task is broken down, devote 20 minutes each day to accomplishing two, and only two tasks from the list. By working on these small things you’ll make progress towards the overall goal, and won’t be overwhelmed in the process. Before you did this you probably thought about how you needed to work on it, how you wanted to retire or be debt free, but had no clue how to start. Now you not only know how to start but also know what you need to work on. If questions or other ideas come up while you’re working, write them down for later and stick to your two tasks. If you try to do five or six in one day you’ll probably put them off and never get to them. Two is doable and will be over before you know it.

Over time you’ll get into the habit of working on your goal. Early on you may have set aside time to do research, and now you’re probably implementing a budget, or setting aside money for retirement. Wherever you are in your journey know that each day you’re working towards something that once seemed unattainable, and it only takes 20 minutes a day to make progress.