Disclaimer: This article provides knowledge to readers which does not provide any advices to readers. The writer and the company of this article take no legal responsibilities for any usage of these methods. The readers should consult their financial adviser first before implementing any financial decisions.

Do you have a habit of setting up goals when a new year kicks in? These goals are good start for a new year.

However, do you know that MOST of the new year goals failed at the beginning of the first month, which is now?

Statistics says only 2% of the people who set goals still followed the goals after 6 months in the United States. Most people may use this statistics to deny setting up goals for the new year.

A few reasons of people failed to fulfil their goals.

• Partly procrastinating when fulfilling goals. They always have "tomorrow" to fulfil those goals. Or worse, they blame events that had happened for the day for their unfulfilled goals.

• Goals are not visible. They may have forgotten their goals after seconds of setting up goals. The goals list may be left in the drawer until the following new year.

• Goals are hardly achievable. Some of the goals are too complicated until people could not think of ways to achieve it.

• People set up goals just to have goals for the new year. They set these goals without thorough thinking and understanding of the goals.

• People may think that miracle will happen when goals are set for the new year. People will feel that setting them up can be achieved without efforts.

Setting up goals require techniques. How can a goal sets AND achievable?

1. Write your goals and place them in a visible place

You will remember your goals the best when you

write them down

Writing them down is more impactful than typing. When writing, people have more brain activity as it creates more stimulation in the brain. Larger stimulation means better memory impact.

Since we are in the digital era, using digital products are unavoidable. Perhaps, using a stylus or the simplest communicator with digital device - a finger can do the job in writing the goals down. All these help in connecting your goals with the brain.

place them in a visible place

It can be anywhere - such as your home office desk, a whiteboard, an empty space under your home clock or a shoe rack. Read them aloud when you see the goals. This serves as a reminder to you about the goals set at the beginning of the year.

Of course, you may set them as your desktop or phone wallpaper. Read them once and aloud when you see them. Since you have reminded yourself about your goals, you will see that you start to take action - unintentionally!

2. NOT kiss but use the KISS principle

KISS principle refers to "Keep It Short and Simple". A short and simple goal can bring better achievement rate as people understand simple instructions better. Goals are not something to look "glamour". It should be something that is achievable and easy to understand.

Taking long goals as example, shorter goals can be easily comprehensible and readable than longer ones. When they are shorter, they are comparatively easier to memorise and posing impacts to action.

When complicated goals are set, they may not make people achieve better position; else it demotivates people from achieving complicated goals. Simpler goals bring easier goal achievement as people understand simple goals clearer than those with fancy-wordings.

Simpler goals do not mean a messy one. For example, "I want to save money." This goal does not specify a specific amount. Perhaps, the goal can be rephrased as "I want to save $500 per month for this year." as it defines 5W1H on the goals.

While they are short and simple, let us not forget about the purpose of setting these goals. The purpose motivates people to follow their goals continuously. Make sure that the purpose is meaningful in your life while aligning these goals to purposes during goals setting.

3. Break down a complicated goal to smaller goals

Breaking down information helps in achieving your goals faster. For the gun parts above, if the gun manufacturer produces the gun as a whole, they may not even know how, or where to begin their production.

Similarly for your goals. For example, if you are planning to save $100,000 as a downpayment for your new house, you may start saving small, such as saving $500 per month. After one year, you may find that you only saved $6,000. Unintentionally, this demotivates you from saving the money; or worse, you stop saving after saving for three months.

To make this a motivated one, since you know that your final goal is $100,000, try to make $20,000 per year as your savings goal.

While you are setting this goal, please be minded that the goal should be feasible, or in other words, can be achieved. The goal is considered feasible if you are earning $200,000 annually (based on 10% annual savings). Or else, tone down your goal.

This requires thorough planning before putting this as a goal. You are advised to calm yourself down before planning for your goal break-downs.

4. Perform a quarterly or monthly review of goals achievement

Since your goals are annual goals, make sure to check whether you are moving towards the direction or against it.

You should never delay your reviews to a period of more than six months for your review. You might be too late to make changes after half-a-year's time.

Opting for at least a quarter review helps you achieving your goals best. You may refresh your mind on the purpose of setting up these goals. It also "warns" people about the timeline of goals achievement.

It is the best if the goals can be reviewed monthly. Besides frequent refreshing, you can gauge your goal performances. As money cannot buy time, it also reminds you about dangers of procrastination.

5. Have a mentor or people with similar goals with you

This is not for everyone, especially when you have a financial goal. However, having a mentor will remind you about your goals. They can be anyone such as your leader, your spouse, your parents, or sometimes, your children. Include them as your goal teller to make sure that you are always "reminded" on your goals. 

If they have similar goals with you, they can motivate you too. (Of course, this can be backfired) If you do not want to be demotivated after the mentor could not achieve their goals, try having more than a mentor.

Having different mentors at the same time will give you different angles of approaching your goals. They act as leaders in your goals journey. As everyone has specific goals with similar general goals, those who do not see their goals achieving will emulate their mentors to move towards their goals.

Goals are achievable when you plan wisely!

Goals improve your life, determination and motivations!

• Do you know systematic goals setting can help achieving your dream?

• Do you know that a wrong purpose can lead to demotivation unintentionally?

• Do you know that risk goals can be achieved easily?

Join the course "Plan For Your Risk" and "Plan For Your Emergency" by Minda Sfera Sdn Bhd if you are interested in learning goals setting. You will get the course now

• at RM240 

• through HRD Corp Claimable Course scheme (contact us for more details)

• in Kahoot! courses

Contact us for more details.