Before you begin making any investments in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, or what have you, it’s always wise to decide on a financial goal for yourself.  Here are three simple steps that can help you establish financial objectives:

 Step 1.  Enumerate all the important activities that you will encounter in your lifetime that will require a substantial amount of funding.  When you’re doing this, try to list down as many goals as possible without qualifying them.  This way your flow of thought goes through smoothly.  If you have a spouse, it is best to get your life partner involved in this very important process.

 Step 2.  Organize each goal in terms of time-lines.  Time is a critical factor in saving for your goals.  Having a lot of time makes it easier to reach the goals but then again not all goals are long-term goals.  So group each goal into Intermediate (less than 3 months), Short-term (more than three months but less than 2 years), and Long-term (two years and over).  These timelines represent the period by which each goals are to be accomplished.  Note that the time-lines may vary for different people.  What is important is to know exactly when you need to accomplish a certain objective. 

 Step 3.  Come up with SMART Goal Statements for each objective.  Make sure that each goal you enumerated can be stated as Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound objectives.  To accomplish this, you will need to quantify each financial objective and estimate the amount of time you have to reach these goals. 

 The steps are easy enough to follow.  Just make sure you put them all on paper. 

Remember:  The difference between a GOAL and a DREAM is the written word!