With the end of the year approaching, many people are already starting to get inspired and set several different financial goals for the year to come.

But, due to the excitement of the moment, many of our goals end up just being on paper, and at the end of the year we realize that we have a list of items that we haven't accomplished.

However, to prevent this scenario from happening again next year, how about learning how to set clear, objective and more realistic financial goals?

As much as it doesn't seem possible, you can create better financial goals that make you get them off paper. But to know how to do this, you need to start from the beginning and better understand the concept of goals.

So, continue reading and learn everything about this subject.

First of all, it is essential that you understand goal setting, as many people end up confusing it with objectives. 

And as much as they are similar and related, the first step to creating attainable financial goals is to understand the difference between them.

Therefore, a financial goal is actions that you will implement throughout the year to reach a financial goal. Already the goal is something you want to achieve.

For example, “have an extra income” is a goal, while “look for jobs to do at home” is a goal related to this goal.

Therefore, financial goals are actions you want to take to make your next year's finances more organized and ensure a peaceful life.

Namely, the Brazilian people are the most indebted. According to the Consumer Indebtedness and Default Survey (PEIC), around 78% of Brazilian families have debts due.

In this scenario, we can already have an idea of what happens when you don't take care of your finances and don't have financial control or planning.

Without it, people don't have a broad view of their finances and can continue to make very poor financial decisions due to lack of planning.

That way, they can get into high-interest loans, spend more than they earn, and run up credit card debt that becomes impractical to pay later.

Therefore, to avoid this scenario and have a better quality of life, the ideal is to start getting financially organized so as not to make bad decisions anymore.

And for that, the ideal thing is to start by setting financial goals that help keep you in line and make your finances healthier.

Setting financial goals is the first step towards having your personal finances more balanced and working in your favor.

So, to help you with that, we've separated 4 steps below that can guide and help you when setting your financial goals for 2023!

First, start by taking stock of your finances. After all, there's no way you can set new goals without knowing what your real financial situation is.

So, by doing this, you can create more realistic goals that are easy to achieve.

Thus, when making the withdrawal, it is interesting that you start by analyzing all the inflows and outflows of money in your bank statement.

In addition, also check out possible outstanding debts, late payments and any other financial problems that may snowball in the future.

Finally, also check your fixed bills and what their situation is like, if they are all paid on time or if you have any overdue.

By checking this information, you will begin to get a sense of where your financial life is currently standing so that you can start setting attainable financial goals.

To get a better view, it may be interesting to add information about your finances in a notebook, spreadsheet or application so that you always have access to the necessary information.

After you have done a good survey, you should already have identified some financial problems. An open debt with high interest rates or even a credit card payment that made the bill even higher.

So, when you realize these items, you can already start to devise solutions to end these problems.

For example, an outstanding debt with high interest rates can be resolved by contacting the bank and negotiating the debt. 

As for the credit card, you can analyze whether you can pay or whether it might be interesting to find a loan with lower interest rates than those applied on the invoice.

That way, you can already start writing down some solutions to your problems so you can solve them.

So far you have been able to analyze current financial scenarios, identify the main problems and think of solutions for them.

That way, by having done this you will already be able to set realistic financial goals naturally!

That's because you didn't sit down and just start setting goals for yourself. You first analyzed your current life and then set goals.

This way, the goals you set will naturally be more realistic and may be easier to achieve!

For example, if you have an outstanding debt, you can define the following actions as goals:

Did you see? With a simple analysis of your current moment, it is already possible to set several financial goals for the next year that are easier to achieve!

And to make it even better, it might be interesting to add a deadline to your goals. Thus, you will have a greater sense of urgency about it and may be more motivated to complete it.

In summary, it is not enough just to set goals and keep them in a closed notebook.

After defining them, it's time to get organized to put them into practice.

For this, a good activity you can do is to set a frequency to track the progress of each goal.

For example, you can track your goals once a week, fortnightly, and even monthly. The important thing is to add a day and time to your schedule to actively work on your goal.

That way, you can track her progress and see what's working and what's not. That way, you can create action plans to make sure your goal is reached by the end of the year.

On the other hand, if you want to use personal finance tools to help with this task, access the recommended content below and check out the options.