Mommy Ginger
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On Defining Goals – Am I losing Clarity?

This morning, I was watching the interview of David Letterman of Tina Fey on Netflix. Tina Fey is someone I look up to. What she does is not easy, and clearly, you need to be smart to create funny and (yet) deep comedy sketches that would serve a purpose. I would say that it would take me leaps and bounds before I could accomplish what she has accomplished. This is most definitely true also for the other entrepreneurs that I look up to. Looking at their lives, it seems so unfathomable to accomplish what they have accomplished.

So, i’ll just go back to my own little shell and strive to accomplish what I can accomplish. Looking at my life, and basing it on my own standards, I think I have done quite well for myself. I have a life that I love, businesses that give me the feeling of fulfilment and of course, a family that I love being with every single day.

This weekend, I was tasked by the CEO (coincidentally my husband; we are all tasked to come up with this) to come up with my life/career goals for the next 5 years. As I stared at my laptop and while trying to create columns to prettify my presentation, I couldn’t think of anything to place inside the table I created. I don’t know why I’m having such a hard time. I usually just dash away and write goals for myself like crazy.

All I could think of were two things — one is to save up for Zeeka’s tuition fee for next year and the other was to pay off my credit card debt. Both of these things were certainly goals, but they weren’t goals for myself. Well, okay, obviously these are responsibilities that I had, but it bothered me why I couldn’t think of goals that were specifically for myself.

I used to be so sure of what I wanted 3, 5 or 10 years from now. Now, I feel that I just want to get by and survive the year.

It may be because now, I’m more mature. MAYBE. I know that success doesn’t come overnight or even in a year. Success for me is doing small things that lead up to small changes that lead to bigger responsibilities that lead to a higher purpose.

I always wanted to help people create their own businesses. I always wanted to help people realize their full potential and be happy with how their life and careers or businesses are going. And based on personal experience, it takes time for this to happen. We (all including me) just have to be patient. Going back to my purpose of helping, that will take even a longer time for me to achieve.

And in terms of success, I don’t even know how to define that for me. My personal definition of success is happiness. So since this is my definition of success, can I write down continue to be happy as a personal goal? The businesswoman inside of me is urging me to write more SMART goals. Specific – how do I become more specific when it comes to happiness? Measurable – do we have levels of happiness? Actionable – Yes, I think this is actionable! Being happy is a choice. Realistic – it is! Time Bound – I need to constantly choose to be happy every single day!

I apologize for rambling. But I’m not sure if I should create more goals for myself. Or is it okay to be content with this kind of life that I have? Is being happy everyday an “enough” goal? 🙂

How about you? Are you clear with what your goals are?

2017 Goals and Plans

Before ending the year, I received a Viber message from my friend Rey. He was asking tips on how to plan for 2017. Like Rey, my main concern is that I have so many things on my mind and so many things I want to do. Creating plans makes me more focused and helps me achieve things faster and more efficiently. I thought I shared in my blog before how I plan things, but apparently, I can’t seem to find it. I may have thought I shared it, but ended up no writing it! haha! So you see how planning helps me! I miss and forget a lot of things.

goals-and-plans-2017

 

So my post for today is to share with you how we, as a couple, plan. You can try it out; it may or may not work for you. For us, we have been doing this for the past four years. It has been pretty helpful.

Vision Statement

The first thing that we do is we set a Vision Statement for 5 to 8 years ahead. Our chosen year is 2025. The vision statement that you create should be very specific. The one that we created as a couple revolved around living comfortably without having to worry about money. This is our vision statement:

For both of us to retire by age 45 and have passive income per month of at least Php 250,000 without any kind of debt.

We have also computed the amount of money that we need to have by that time to achieve that kind of passive income. Just to give you an idea, a pool of Php 14.5 Million can get you a passive income of Php 50,000 a month. With this, we need at least Php 72 Million worth of investments 9 years from now. Each of us need to earn Php 30+ Million (around Php 4 Million a year). Sounds huge, but we have to dream big, right? (Libreng mangarap!). My idol in this aspect is Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income. If he can earn around $1000+ a month, I know I can, too!

Mission

Aside from the vision statement, we also created a family mission. Our mission is:

A family that will spread knowledge through various media to help people grow and achieve their goals in life.

The mission that you come up with should represent what kind of change you want to create in this world. Analyze what talents, tools, etc. that you can offer so that the world becomes a better place. This will be the legacy that you will leave behind.

Define Goals for every aspect of your Life

We split our goals into 7 categories. Here are the categories that we have for this year: Goals related to our Daughter, Spiritual, Financial, Fitness & Health, Career, Mental and Start-up Goals. Of course, for your own goals, you will have to change it, unless we have exactly the same life (Haha! But hey, who knows?!). For each of the category, we listed different goals. Some may contain only one goal, while other categories may contain several.

For each goal, place the corresponding cost/resource/how much would it entail for you to achieve that goal. This way, you will be able to get the total financial value to make your goals a reality for this year.

Once you have that figure, please read this post that I made just last December:

http://mommyginger.com/2016/12/5-tips-investing-money-childs-future.html

It will give you an idea on how I invest that money that I have or the money that I will need to set aside for the future.

I really hope that this helps you plan for 2017. If you want a copy of our template, just click on this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ttFczuGhM2dqDx3WVWlmj89fPJiW2weMrttmqI5JPO8/edit?usp=sharing

Please feel free to spread this and to share it with friends and family! Have an amazing start to 2017! Cheers!