Want First-Class Money? Here’s How to Set First-Class Financial Goals

During my second meeting with a client, she said, “I was talking with my sister and told her that I want first-class money, so that’s my financial goal.” I love that she was talking about financial planning and goals with her family and most importantly, that she wants first-class money. This goal is perfect because it’s clear, highly visual, meaningful to her, and specific. Now my goal, as her financial planner, is to do everything possible to ensure she gets there. 

The reason this interaction stood out to me was that clients’ financial goals are typically too generic, for example, save more, see the world, enjoy a better life or too boring for example, increase savings by five percent, and contribute the maximum to my Roth IRA. Instead of these vague and generic goals, try using these four key elements to create your own first-class financial goals:

1. Make them meaningful.

This is all about what matters to you. In today’s world of social media, it’s easy to get focused on what everyone else has, but this is about what you truly want.  

2. Make it visual.

The more vividly you can envision your goal, the more motivated you’ll be to achieve it. For example, when my client said “first-class money,” I had an immediate vision of flying first class to a tropical destination.

3. Make a physical copy.

Write it down, make it easy to read and reread, and keep it somewhere you’ll see it often. You are significantly more likely to achieve your goals if you write them down. 

4. Be specific.

You want your goals to be specific and measurable. That being said, you also don’t want to take the fun out of them. If I had reacted by starting to calculate the cost of first-class tickets, assuming three percent inflation and five trips per year, I would have ruined the moment and stalled our momentum. 

There is magic to creating goals correctly; it’s a significant part of the financial planning process. As a financial planner, it’s critical to know that we are walking, or in this case, flying first class, to the same destination.