The beginning of a new year is often a time to set new goals and plans, and often these goals involve money. This year let's talk about financial goals in a little different way. Think about your financial well-being:
- where you are now?
- where you'd like to be in the future?
Take a look at the eight images at the top of this blog post; you can click through them.
- Pick the one photograph that best represents what you want your financial well-being to feel like in the future.
- Now, write down why you chose that image. There are no right or wrong answers here.
Research done at the Center for Advanced Hindsight at Duke University found that this activity helps people connect with their goals on a deeper, more emotional level.
In addition, their research found that many people saw financial well-being in similar ways. Specifically, seven themes emerged.
Often people talk about financial well-being around themes such as:
- Stability: don't need to worry about finances and want to feel secure with finances
- Family: provide for family, whether take family vacations or take care of children's future needs
- Freedom: feel like nothing is weighing them down or holding them back
- Journey: recognized positive financial well-being would be achieved through a series of steps
- Travel: to have the financial capability for luxuries like travel
- Concrete goals such as buying a car or pay off student debt
- Limitless possibilities: excitement for endless opportunities
Does your vision of financial well-being align with any of these themes, or do you see it differently? I'd love to see your thoughts in the chat box below, if you'd like to share.
Once you have a vision of where you'd like to be in the future, then you can start taking steps towards it!