How to get your investment goals on track

Written on :

Are you ready for 2017? I asked my husband this question and he shrugged and said..'It's already here' I know, right? Not much time has passed since we were caught in the throes of thinking and planning for 2017 and, Bam! (well, not literally...), It's here. And here's the trap; when we get a busy break, we might end up doing things the same old way once we get back some normalcy. And that's so easy to do after all the eating, drinking, travelling, and for some of us , cooking (*wink) during the festive period. I don't know about you but I couldn't wait to get some normalcy back after the beautiful disruption. Early this week I thought to myself, 'I think I had a false start for 2017'. So, I gave myself the opportunity to start again. If you happened to have a false start like I did. Here are some tips to help you get back on track, especially in terms of your investment goals. First of all, I realize so many of us set goals for our life, health, career and all but we don't set investment goals. And that's because we probably don't realize we should be deliberate about wanting to build wealth And for those who set investment goals, sometimes we set ambitious goals to make millions but literary don't think about what we need to do to actually earn this additional cash. So, there are four simple ways you can become a millionaire;

1. Make more than you need to spend and invest the difference wisely.
2. Develop simple daily wealth habits that result in wealth accumulation.
3. Inherit millions
4. Win a jackpot

Well, according to the experts, the exact odds of you winning a jackpot are like 1 in 14 million and lucky you! if you get to inherit wealth. For the rest of us, we need to work on options 1 and 2 Option 1 is literary so simple yet not so simple after all. With the value of the currency crashing and prices of basic commodities rising, it's easy to just give up on finding the difference to invest. The good thing is Option 1 is three fold; Spend less, earn more and Invest wisely You can work on spending a little less than usual. It doesn't have to be extreme but you might have to make some tough decisions. There has to be a gap between what you earn and what you spend. No matter how narrow. The next step is to raise the income side of the equation. The advantage to this approach is your earning capacity depends on you; how well you build your skills or create products in the market place. Many resources teach the income side of the equation or the frugal (spend less) side of the equation as though they are mutually exclusive. They are not. If you don’t master the frugal side of the equation, you still run a high risk of failure due to the all-too-common mistake of allowing spending to rise as fast as income. However, to be honest, being frugal alone is a slow and difficult path to wealth. It requires a lot of discipline and sacrifice. You might need to wait till you retire at 70 to enjoy your wealth. A comprehensive way to build wealth is to focus on both sides of the equation together; maximize savings by controlling spending while working on growing income at the same time. Some of the ways you can grow your income include; updating your skills, converting a hobby to into income, starting a side business, taking on free lance work When you  build both sides of the equation, you increase what you have to invest wisely. You might be thinking, 'I should be working to grow my income to get wealthy enough to afford the things I need, not to invest' Hmm...nope You really can't build sustainable wealth if you consume every extra income you earn. Trust me, Billionaires like Bill gates and Warren Buffet still keep investing to preserve and grow what they earn I must admit, none of these is easy but it's wise to start early with whatever you can. To help you set your wealth goals, I have a free set of guidelines for you. I'll send you the guidelines as nuggets in the coming week   I hope this sets the tone for you to start thinking about getting your wealth goals on track for 2017   P.s The third part of the equation is to invest wisely. We'll get to that soon enough