198 | The Purpose of Your Money Goals

What if the purpose of your money goal isn’t to achieve it?

Most lawyers view their goals as finish lines to reach, with anything short of full achievement being deemed failure.

But that perspective overlooks the immense value in the journey toward the goal and the progress you make simply because you dare to attempt it.

In this episode, let’s explore a new perspective on money goals that places less emphasis on the goal itself and more on the personal growth and progress in working toward the goal.

• • the way we tend to think about goals
  • an example of one of my clients wanting to achieve a particular goal and missing it
  • the elements that we overlook when the only measure of success is achieving the goal
  • the way I think about money goals
  • the process of change required to achieve your goals
  • the importance of thinking about goals in a more flexible way

Submit a question for Episode 200!

You’re listening to Wealthyesq. We are a community of lawyers who believe that true wealth is having control of our time. I’m Rho Thomas, and as a busy wife, mom, and former Biglaw associate, I know all too well the tension between the culture of the legal profession and pretty much everything else you want to do in life. That’s why each week, I’m bringing you the information and tools you need to improve your money mindset and manage your money to create true wealth. Because ultimately, it’s not about the money. It’s about the freedom and flexibility the money affords.

Hey friend. Welcome back to the show. I hope you’re doing well and having an amazing day so far. Today we are talking about your money goals. And specifically, we are talking about the purpose of your goals because I see a lot of my clients use their goals against themselves. I think it’s something in our lawyer minds and the way that we tend to think about what we should be able to do and what happens when we don’t do the things that we should be able to do or when we don’t reach our goals. So I wanted to share the way that I think about money goals. To help you see a different way of thinking about your goals. Merriam Webster defines a goal as the end toward which effort is directed and that is the most common way that we think about our goals, right? Like we think about our goal as this endpoint, this destination that I’m trying to reach. In most people’s minds, the goal is only about the end result. I see my clients set a certain goal like they want to save this amount of money or they want to pay off this amount of debt in this time period. And they get so focused on the end result that they miss the progress along the way. Perfect example one of my clients wanted to save $10,000 for her emergency fund. She didn’t have an emergency fund before or she might have had, you know, like $1,000 or something like that. But she wanted to have more of a cushion. She wanted to build it up and she wanted to do that within three months. When we got to the three month mark, she was at seven or $8,000. And in her mind she had failed. And if we’re looking at the goal in terms of this endpoint that you’re trying to reach, then yes, she didn’t reach that endpoint. objectively. $8,000 is less than $10,000. But she got so much closer to that goal than she was before. She got so much further than she would have gotten if she had never set the goal in the first place. And she became the kind of person who could save a $10,000 emergency fund when she used to spend everything she made. I like to think of our money goals. As a guidepost for us. So rather than this endpoint, this final destination. It’s a guideposts it’s a compass. It’s showing me the right direction to go. If you think about a compass, it just always points north. It’s showing you the direction of north and so you follow it to go in the right direction. But you don’t get to North. There’s not a point that you reach where you’re like, Yep, I made it to North, right. But the compass continues to guide you and shows you which way is north. I like to think about goals in the same way. So in the case of my client, her $10,000 goal showed her the direction that she was moving in. So when she hit 8000 she was clearly moving in the right direction like she was closer to 10,000 than she was to zero. And yes with money goals, there will be a point that you do ultimately reach them. She did reach that $10,000 goal. But if I don’t reach that goal within this arbitrary timeframe that I set for myself, it doesn’t mean that I failed. I just keep going. I’m continuing to move in the direction of my goal. So if I hit it in four months instead of three months, is that really that bad? There may be times in life like other areas of life, where thinking about your goals in that way as the final destination or the endpoint may be more beneficial or even necessary. Like if there is a set deadline that you have to complete something by then yeah, the timeframe that you achieve that goal in matters. But within personal finance is not typically that way. When you don’t hit your money goals in a particular timeframe. That doesn’t mean that you failed. You just keep going. And if you’re closer to that goal than you were when you started, you know you’re going in the right direction. Another thing is in the process of achieving your goal, you’re developing skills, you’re developing a different mindset, a different way of thinking about your money, a different way of managing your money, and that will continue to serve you even once you achieve that goal or even once you reach that endpoint that you ultimately want to reach. That is so much more important than being able to say I save $10,000 In three months. Like we talked about how my client didn’t reach her emergency fund goal in the time that she wanted, but she learned so much in that time. So she was thinking about her money completely differently from how she was thinking about it before we started working together. She was managing her money differently. She wouldn’t have done those things if she hadn’t set that goal for herself. The goal required her to make those changes and now she has the new way of thinking the new habits with her money for life. After she hit the $10,000 savings goal. She wanted to turn to paying off debt and the way that she was thinking about her money at that point and the things that she was doing with her money when she got to paying off the debt allowed her to make so much faster progress than she would have otherwise. We have to think about our goals for our finances in a less rigid way. There is no winning or losing or failing in personal finance, there’s no scoreboard. So don’t create goals for yourself and then use them to beat yourself up because that’s only going to discourage you. It’s going to make you not want to keep doing the work that you’re doing to achieve the goals that you have. So instead of thinking about your goals as this hard and fast thing of you know either I achieve the goal or I failed. Allow yourself to enjoy the journey toward achieving the goal. Enjoy that journey of moving in the right direction. Don’t let hitting or not hitting your goal define you. Don’t let the arbitrary timeline that you set for your goal, tell you whether you’re doing a good job or not. If you’re moving closer to the goal, you’re still traveling north going back to our compass analogy, you’re doing a good job, even if you don’t hit your goal to save $10,000 In three months, as long as you’re moving closer to it, that’s great. If you’re at $8,000 in three months, starting from basically zero you’re doing a great job. So let’s change the way that we think about our money goals. Let’s think about them in terms of a guideposts or a compass showing us the direction to go. We don’t have to be so rigid with it right? We’re looking for progress. We’re looking for movement in the right direction. The norm for most people is to stay stuck in the same place month after month. So if you’re moving forward because you’re striving for a goal even if you don’t ultimately achieve it in the time that you want. You’re doing great. All right, so that is it for this week’s episode. Remember, we are coming up on episode 200. It’s just two weeks from today. If you’re listening to this episode, the day it’s released so April 19, will be the 200th episode. And to celebrate I am answering whatever burning questions you have from money questions to personal questions to random questions. It’s all fair game so head to rho thomas.com/question. And ask away. If you’re feeling shy or you don’t want me to know that you asked a question. You can even submit it anonymously. So get those questions in. You have until next Friday, April 12. I’ve already gotten a handful of questions and would love to get more because I think it’s going to be a fun episode. So I look forward to your questions. All right. As we close out front, I pray that you take the information you learn here, apply it in your life and open up to the realization that wealth is available to you. As you do that consistently. Week after week. You’ll continue to take steps to regain control of your time build wealth and live the life of freedom and choice you deserve. Talk to you later.