When it comes to goal setting, there are many interesting schools of thought on the topic of how best to achieve what you want. The two foremost are complete opposites in theory;

• Set goals as high as you possibly can (such as, ‘I will make $40 million in a year’)

• Set reachable goals (I will make a comfortable living this year).

The debate for each has its own merits, although one obviously stands out as the more reasonable/achievable; however, don’t let me persuade you from reaching for the stars! Statistically speaking though, common goals are rarely met. This seems to be because the focus shifts and memories about why the goal was set in the first place are lost. Not surprisingly, most goals are set on New Year Eve, and this is a mistake as the ‘novelty’ of the goals wears off and excitement quickly diminishes. I’m sure most people reading this would have experienced this for themselves at some point.

Regardless of what the statistics say regarding goal setting, the task of this article is to get you to ask yourself the question ‘are you able to reach your goals with your current lifestyle?’. This question is designed to get you thinking about whether your spending habits are getting in the way of your set goals. Let us say you’re looking to lose 20 pounds; however, you can’t afford the gym membership because you have two family cars running simultaneously – and everyone knows about petrol prices! Do you need two cars?

Write down a list of things that you could do without. They could be items like:

• Second car
• Heating pool throughout winter
• Regularly eating out
• Takeaway coffees and lunches
• Buying newspapers and magazines
• Buying extra groceries because you’ve let food go bad

Really, the potential list is endless and many people have multiple superfluous expenses that they could certainly do without. While working out what money is spent on items that are important to you and those that aren’t, you might say ‘well, there’s nothing that I’m spending excess money on’, but I can almost guarantee that when you scrutinise your spending thoroughly, you will find some!

It is not about living like a pauper just to meet a few goals; it is about making sure the things that are important in your life have a chance to flourish and the things that aren’t get the chop!