{"id":6560,"date":"2009-10-05T05:00:21","date_gmt":"2009-10-05T12:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getrichslowly.org\/blog\/?p=6560"},"modified":"2023-10-02T15:50:12","modified_gmt":"2023-10-02T21:50:12","slug":"goals-are-the-gateway-to-financial-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/goals-are-the-gateway-to-financial-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Goals are the gateway to financial success"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the second of a fourteen-part series that explores the core tenets of Get Rich Slowly.<\/i><\/p>\n

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Yesterday I completed my first marathon. It didn’t happen exactly as I’d planned, but it happened. Instead of running 26.2 miles, I walked the entire course. Some might view this as a failure. Not me. I’m ecstatic to have finally, at the age of forty, met one of my life-long goals.<\/p>\n

Though I had hoped to run the marathon, training injuries the past two years thwarted me. Instead, I walked the Portland Marathon<\/a> in six hours and 54 minutes.<\/b> Chris Guillebeau<\/a> (who wrote The Art of Non-Conformity<\/a>) walked the first nine miles with me, and Mac joined me for the final 8.2 miles. Though it didn’t happen the way I intended, I accomplished my goal.<\/p>\n

What does my marathon experience have to do with personal finance? Everything.<\/i> The journey to financial success is not a sprint \u2014 you are not going to get rich quickly \u2014 but a marathon. It doesn’t matter how swiftly you pay off your debt or save for retirement<\/a>. The important thing is to actually make the effort. If you don’t start, you can never finish. To know where you’re going, you need to set goals.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Goals are the Building Blocks of Success<\/span><\/h2>\n

I used to be lukewarm about goals. I’d set them, but could never seem to meet them. They seemed so far away, so difficult to reach. Or a few months would pass and the goals that had once seemed so appealing no longer really mattered to me. So I stopped setting goals. I lived life without intention.<\/p>\n

As a result, I came to view myself as a failure. I had always wanted to be a writer, but I rarely wrote. I wanted to retire early, but instead I was deep in debt. I wanted to be fit, but I was only growing fatter every year. Without goals, I wandered aimlessly through life.<\/p>\n

Over the past few years, however, I’ve come to understand that goals are the building blocks of success. Goals provide direction. They help you steer your life toward the things that matter most.<\/p>\n

Since starting Get Rich Slowly, I’ve set a variety of financial goals. In nearly every case, I’ve met or exceeded my own expectations \u2014 often by a long way. For example:<\/p>\n