Importance of Setting the Right Levels of Financial Goals

byplatinumclub

290 followers

Updated 10 years ago

One of the first tasks at Wealthy Affiliate is to write your financial goals. Fortunately this is made public. I respect that each individual has a right to choose what goals he wishes but wish to respectfully suggest that each person consider what I have to say about realistic targets, which should be much higher than what many people aim for.

Most people set financial targets mainly out of their personal circumstances like their current needs and what they feel would be sufficient for them to be comfortable with. Sadly reality does not work like that. Let me give an example. If a person decided to become a Doctor and was already in medical school, he would make his financial goals in relation to what is expected of Doctors earnings. I have no idea what Doctors generally earn throughout the world but think it will be quite acceptable for him to state that he would like to initially earn at least $5000 per month. Would be happier if he could earn $10 000 per month and it would not be so far fetched for him to say that he would like to comfortably earn $20 000 per month once he is established in his chosen Niche within his profession. Certainly some Doctors earn fantastic sums of money, but these are few and far between.

I am using the figures arbitrarily and in terms of what I personally feel a Doctor would aim for.

My dear colleagues in Business. You are Entrepreneurs! The challenges, opportunities and general duties of an Entrepreneur far exceeds that of Professionals within the traditional Niches like Doctors, Engineers, Attorneys, etc.

I would go so far as to state that Entrepreneurs Exceed the duties of many CEO's of companies.

I have some experience working in the Middle East and can give you a general Industry Standard there, which I think is an excellent Precedent to Follow. A Manager will not earn less than $5000 per month. A Senior Executive Will Not earn Less than $20 000 per month. Certainly there are quite a few that earn far more than this as well.

Despite my opinion that we Entrepreneurs should set targets at least double what the rest of the Professions earn, I think to be realistic (in the beginning at least) it would be a good idea to set the minimum earning to the $5000 per month mark; and make $20 000 the medium term goal and lets discuss the long term goal a little further before we put a figure to it.

Lets pause for a minute first: People will achieve what they target. You can dictate your future by your mindset and habits that follow in congruence to that mindset. If you would be happy earning $1000 per month, and set that as your target; once you achieve that level, you would pretty much not make any serious passionate die-hard effort to scale your income further.

Lets come back to another argument. Imagine if a Doctor said he would be happy if he could earn $1000 per month?

My opinion would be that he certainly is short sighted as to the real potential of his professions earning Capacity. How do you think, I feel, when I see a fellow Entrepreneur saying they wish to earn a $1000 per month. Let me tell you exactly how I feel. I feel so sad and my heart cries out to that person and I wish there was some nice way for me to bring some light into the true financial potential of an Entrepreneur.

I once visited a businessman in Dubai when I was on vacation there in 2006. I was personally earning a 7 figure income at the time and thought I was truly doing exceptionally well. The Person I spoke to was a small Businessman who had just his wife as his personal assistant, a receptionist and a General Labourer who attended to menial tasks. I saw he seemed to have very expensive furnishings in his offices, which was situated in a Prime location, almost as though he were a major Blue Chip Company. I asked him straight out how much money he makes, and his answer threw me off balance, which I am still trying to wrap my head around to this day.

He said He was making about $350 Million per annum.

I remarked that it was a lot of money for a small Businessman. He replied that if an Entrepreneur sets a lower target than that then he should not call himself an Entrepreneur. He said he thought he was earning very little because he knows some of his colleagues that earn far more than that.

My life changed that day. I immediately set higher targets for myself and despite having not reached even a fraction of that, I keep searching for ways to scale my business to get me to that stage. In the process I earned an income that would be considered great and exciting in the opinion of the general majority of self employed people today but never for a minute did I rest or slacken my goal to achieve the true potential that Every Entrepreneur should strive for.

Osman