Why Do My Money Goals Never Stick?

Speaker A00:00:28

How about we start with a listener question today? Ralph, I said big financial dreams, and nothing changes. What am I missing? I don't know.You ever had that rush of motivation in January, and by February, it's gone. You don't lack passion. You just lack a plan.And God can bless direction a lot faster than he can confusion, because hope without a handle slips through your fingers. I drink tea, and I've got a teacup here if you're not seeing me on the screen.We are available on YouTube, but if I didn't have this handle, I'd be in trouble. And see Smart goals turn vision into velocity. So today, let's stop chasing inspiration and start building traction on today's show. Hello and welcome.I'm Ralph. Thank you for joining me on the Financially Confident Christian Show Every day.My goal is to help you break that cycle of financial shame and do it with confidence. And I've spent 30 years helping people turn foggy financial wishes into wins. Listen, I personally learned that clarity creates consistency.In my best seasons. The times when I felt like I was really into my finances in the best way weren't busy. They were focused. Let me tell you about this listener.She sent me this email about a month ago. She said, ralph, I really want to save more. And when I got that email, I was like, oh, that's great. We want to save more. But I knew right away.I said, we got to fix this. We need to make it smart. I'm going to talk in a minute about what smart means.There's an acronym we're going to use today to help you make these better plans. So with her, I said, how much do you want to save? She goes, ralph, I really want to save $1,200. I said, great. What's your time frame?She goes, I'd like to do it by the end of the year. I said, perfect. Okay, so we got to save $1,200, and we got 12 months to do it.That means we need to put a hundred dollars a month in an emergency account. Well, guess what? It was smart. She measured it. And guess what? She hit that goal in October. She didn't change her job. She changed her clarity.And see, that's where we have transformation through simplicity. So let's get back to our question today. How do we move from dreaming to doing?Because it's easy to dream things, but how do we make our goals specific enough for God to bless them and measurable enough for us to track them? Because we're talking today about shifting from emotion to Empowerment. Well, let's get into this idea of smart goals.That's S, M A R T. This is a way, a format that I've used many times. Let's jump right into it. Number one, you got to be specific. It's the what? See, vague dreams, those things that just.Oh, big pie in the sky things, they die in the fog. So don't just say, save more. When I got that email, I was like, oh, I gotta fix this. It's not just save more. Say what and where.Name the dollar amount. Name the destination account. So with her, what we did, we said, okay, you want to save $1,200 by what period?We knew where the amount was, we knew what the destination was. Because the truth is, the clearer the target, the stronger your traction. You can't hit what you don't name. So start off with S for smart. Number two.Measurable. That's the number. I say this on the show all the time. What gets tracked grows. What gets tracked gets accomplished. See, faith doesn't fear numbers.So assign a real figure, even if it's small. Hey, listen, you might say, Ralph, I'm never going to save $1200, man. I'd really like to save $100 before summertime. Okay, great. You got six months.How much do you need to set aside? Because I truly believe this at my core, God multiplies what you monitor. And when you have that progress, it sort of feeds on itself.That motivation will grow. Because you feel that measurement, you feel like getting somewhere. Like I'm on a diet. I've talked about this on the show many times.When I get on that scale and I've lost a pound or two, guess what that does? It feeds the motivation. I have a goal in mind. Number three, thing A is for achievable. This is your reality check.Because listen, if you're going to set goals, make them real, make them something you were able to accomplish. Yes. I want you to stretch yourself, but don't stop. It's kind of like a rubber band. You take a rubber band out and you can pull on that rubber band.Well, at some point you got to be careful because I don't know about you, but I pulled too far and snapped my fingers. That's not a good feeling. We got to do the same thing when you're setting goals, stretch yourself.If you don't stretch yourself, you're never going to get anywhere. But don't let it snap, because God blesses diligence, not delusion. I want to say that again because I Want you to hear that loud and clear.God is going to bless that. Diligence, not diligence. In other words, if you say, ralph, I want to save a million dollars next year, I got 12 months to do it. All right?Show me how to do it. I'm sorry, you're probably not going to save a million dollars in a year. But you might say, ralph, you know what? Let me be more reasonable.Let me stretch. I want to save $2,000, see, because that reachable goal keeps hope alive. If you have this goal that's unreachable, you're going to give up.When February hits, you're going to say, I can't do this, Ralph. There's no way I'm going to. Like. I start out my weight loss journey at £430, okay? I get on the scale yesterday. I'm 248.That means I've lost almost £200. Now, if I had started off and said, I want to lose 200 pounds, guess what? I wouldn't have done it. I would have failed.So right now my goal is I want to lose five pounds in the next month. Think about your finances the same way you can always expand it later. When I was first starting out, when I got under £400, man, I was like this.Great, I'm making progress, but I started where I could succeed because those small wins compound faster than those big wishes. Yes, I wanted to get to where I'm getting to. I want it to be. My goal is to lose 200 pounds.That's my overall goal, and I'm just 18 pounds away from it. But I couldn't start off with, I want to lose 200 pounds. I need to start with, I need to lose 5 pounds. Do the same thing with your finances.If you don't have an emergency fund. I want to save a hundred dollars in the next six months. Great. Do it. And then when you get that goal, it'll fund itself.Next thing, make sure it's relevant. It's got to be a why align your goals with your calling? Why does this matter to your faith? Why does this matter to your family?Why does it matter to your future? You got to answer those questions because a lot of people say, ralph, you do a Christian show, saving is greed. I'm going to fight you on that one.It's not about greed. It's stewardship. The Lord wants us to protect what he's given us. And when your goal serves your purpose, guess what? It does. It fuels your peace.Because I've said this Many times, money follows a mission, not the other way around. And last but not least, time bound the when. You've got to set a date for this. Today's question was, I want to save money. Okay, what's your date?Because dates drive discipline. A lot of people say, well, Ralph, you're going to put pressure on me. That's not true. Deadlines aren't pressure, they're purpose.I'm going to share with you a Bible verse from Habakkuk, chapter 2, verse 2, in just a second. But a goal without a date is just a dream with good intentions. Put it on the calendar, pray about it, say, God, this is my goal. This is.It's smart, but help me get to that. So again, make them smart. Let's get right into our Bible verse today. I mentioned this a second ago. It comes from Habakkuk chapter 2, verse 2.And it says, write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. And I think that's the anchor for today's whole episode. Make it smart. Because when you do those things, then you have clarity.You have communication with yourself and with God because you're going to say to God, help me with this, and you have obedience. How about we pray together right now? Lord, we so much want to live in the reality of setting smart goals.So, Lord, help us start by giving us clarity of purpose. Lord, help us to have courage to commit to this, no matter what that looks like in our lives. But Lord, we know we're going to struggle.So give us diligence to follow through. Help us to take one day at a time, Lord, and just look to you and rely on you and pray over those things.And Lord, help us make goals that glorify you. Not just grow me. It's easy to grow ourselves, Lord, but help us to glorify you in all that we do. Lord, we ask this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.All right, well, here's your one action item for today. I want you to just think about this. Today. I want you to write one smart financial goal for 2026. But I want you to be specific.I want you to write the amount, I want you to write the date, and I want you to write the account and then add it to your calendar. Here's a little side thing I'm going to tell you to do. Find an accountability partner for this, too.Because in my experience, when you have somebody you can trust, a friend or a spouse or somebody like that to help keep you accountable, share with them and say, hey, this is what I'm going to do. Pray about it together. If it's that savings goal, if it's that putting money away for retirement, whatever that looks like for you, do that today.Because small clarity now creates big freedom later. So today we've set smart goals together every month, reviewing, celebrating and praying through them as a community.Now, I want to talk to you about our community. We just released this community. It's a Patreon channel. A lot of people saying, what are you doing there, Ralph? It's a community.Go to financiallyconfidentchristian.com/join. I'm not asking for your money. If you want to support the show, you can.But it's a great place to go and interact with other people who follow the show. We're going to have some goal reviews, some encouragement. There's real stories of answered prayers and progress.It's a way to shape and to share what's going on in your life because accountability with grace isn't guilt anymore. And that consistency grows faster in community. So again, go to financiallyconfidentchristian.com/join.And as I close today, you don't need a new dream. You need a clear one. We talked today about clarity. Well, that clarity builds momentum.Dates and dollars will finally defeat that drift that you're feeling. So make it plain. Make it happen. Be a financially confident Christian. Stay financially confident. You can do this. I have faith in you.Have faith in yourself. God bless you. And I'll see you again tomorrow on the show.