When we were younger, I’m sure many of us experienced the same thing around the first of the year in elementary school: making New Year’s Resolutions. This was the beginning of us being introduced to setting goals, whether they made sense or not. Maybe some of us said one of our resolutions was to play outside more, or to get a dog. Either way, whatever we wrote down back then doesn’t really matter now. It was just a starting point, preparing us for when we got older, and when we really wanted to start setting goals for ourselves.
Before coming to college, apart from my experience in elementary school, I had never really sat down and taken the time to write my goals out, whatever they might be. It didn’t seem like a necessary thing to do. Looking back, I wish I had. Though I have done many of the big things I wanted to do, I forgot some of my smaller goals along the way. I also had it in my mind that if I wanted to set goals, it’d be best to do it when the New Year starts, so I had a “fresh start”. This hindered me, because I waited to set my goals, and then forgot about them.
Fast forward to June of this year. I wanted to do something a little different, and I virtually wrote out my goals for the coming months. My goals were to get my drivers license, and learn how to properly budget and manage my money. I didn’t look at my entry from June until recently. When I looked at it, I compared my goals to where I was in my life, and felt so accomplished. I got my drivers license in September, and I started learning how to budget! Though these seem like mundane goals, I knew they would be attainable. Through this experience, I learned that seeing my goals in front of me is really motivating, and pushed me to want to accomplish them. I suggest trying it, if you haven’t yet!
If you have a similar goal of learning how to budget and manage your money, check out the YouTube channel called Frugal Chic Life that really helped me! It’s never too late to start learning how to save and budget.