Article 7: Values are the Foundation of Wealth

When you find something to be valuable, it is a reflection of your values. All of those things which you find valuable in your life form your system of values.

It is this collection of values, most of them reflecting our beliefs and those we grew up with, that we use to make decisions everyday about the tradeoffs in our lives. More work vs. less time with the kids, more exercise vs. less dessert, being honest vs. lying to get what you want etc. This is one function of our system of values. You will make choices between these kinds of things based on what is most important to you at a given time in your life. Read more

Wealthy Goals

I want to talk about goals … look at it as a belated conversation about New Year’s resolutions if you will. A resolution is typically nothing more than a commitment to a goal. In my coaching practice, I often talk to people about how to get balance in their lives. They feel overwhelmed with work, don’t make enough time for family or themselves, etc. One of the first things I try to find out is what they do to identify goals. A high percentage of the people I work with actually do pay attention to their goals and have some kind of system they use to identify and track them. This is actually not that surprising. A good number of my clients are self-employed and as such have a higher than average level of motivation and have been working on self-improvement, increased productivity and such more so than the general population. However, it doesn’t matter how aware you are of what should be done, it’s whether you do it. The challenge is, that like many other things in our lives, its the tools you use that are the ones that count.

I have the same issues myself - I get into hyper busy mode and forget about the goals and routines I have committed to and just keep pushing through whatever is on my plate. I’m supposed to be setting an example for others and helping them in their lives and sometimes don’t have my own act together either. Hey, I’m human. And besides, ‘being perfect’ is not on my goals list…

In any event, we need to make the effort to use some kind of system for identifying goals. I have found that one of the best things is to make sure you have goals in all dimensions of your life. Since my philosophy is that everything we are can be categorized into one of the various dimensions of our overall wellbeing (or more specifically, wealth), this is how I suggest people set up their goals.

When you list out the various things in your life that you attach value to, you have identified the dimensions of your wealth that are the most important to you. These then become the categories of your goals. I create a table in MS Word (you can of course use anything) that looks like this:

————————Year ———|———Month ———|———Week———–

Physical:

Spiritual:

Intellectual:

Relationships:

Family:

Service:

Fun:

Business:

Investments:

Etc.

When you fill this out, keep these guidelines in mind:

1. Create higher level goals for the year.
2. Derive more detailed goals from the yearly goals for a given month (may require that you break it down on a separate page to identify “month-size-tasks” for particularly challenging goals).
3. Update Sunday night each week. Save a unique file for each week for future reference. Break down tasks to be listed here that can be accomplished in no more than one day.
4. For each day, write down the things that you will commit to accomplishing in that day. WRITE it down on a note pad or something that can easily fit into your pocket or purse. Don’t enter it in a computer or your PDA (a planner is OK if it is handwritten). Writing it down makes it more real. Once you have written it down, make sure it is something achievable in this day and that you mentally are committed to getting it done. Prioritize the items. Make sure there are not too many. It’s real easy to make a list that you never complete (done that a few times haven’t you?). If you can, avoid doing anything else in your day until the short list is finished off

The nice thing about this is that anything you come up with that is important to you can evolve to something you want to track as a goal you are committing to achieving. This method keeps all the dimensions of your wealth in “top of mind” prominence asking for your attention.

These categories are what make up your quality of life: don’t ignore the list.

Mark T. Rafter, Author
The Wealth Manifesto: Transforming Your Life from Survive to Thrive
(Pre-publication release now available at The Wealth Manifesto