Financial success starts with setting financial goals and identifying what is important to you.  This seems obvious, but, as we know, the simple often gets lost in the complicated.

When I sit down with clients and ask them what are their financial goals, the answer I get isn’t so much a clear goal, but often a vague idea or a strategy. Things like, build wealth or, buy an investment property are typical responses. Building wealth and buying investment properties are in many cases good practice, but it is not what I mean as a financial goal.

I want to know why they want to build wealth and own an investment property. What do they want to achieve with this wealth?

A financial goal might be something like, build enough wealth to retire from work at age 65 and fund the retirement lifestyle they envisage. It might be, to go on an overseas holiday every 3 years or, send our kids to a private school.

Building wealth and buying an investment property may well end up being the way we fund a retirement at age 65 or pay for our kids’ education, but they are not goals in themselves.

At the beginning of the financial planning process, we try and help our clients identify the things they want in life.  We normally try and break this down into time-frames and set up plans accordingly.

We like to identify the ongoing things that are important to our clients. Things they like to do daily, weekly and monthly. Our ongoing goals usually relate to our desired lifestyle.  We then calculate what this lifestyle is likely to cost and allocate funds accordingly.

We then like to identify short to medium goals. Things they would like to achieve in the next 1-3 years, overseas holidays and home improvements are common short term goals.

We also look at medium to long term goals which are things that the client would like to achieve in the next 3-7 years. Things like purchasing a house or funding the kids’ education are common medium to long term goals.

There are also the ultra-long term goals which are those goals that set to be achieved well into the future, things like retirement and businesses succession are typical ultra-long term goals.

In an ideal world we would have enough income and resources to meet all these goals, but for most people this involves prioritising goals, altering time frames and making sacrifices (in the short term and permanently) to achieve our goals.