Are You Struggling To Achieve Your Financial Goals? Here Are Ways To Stack Success In Your Favor!

Some goals are easy to achieve while other goals are quite challenging.

I’ve experienced successes and failures many times over many things.

Fortunately for me, I believe I’ve had more successes on the personal finance front than failures.

But are you struggling to achieve your financial goals? If yes, how do you “right the ship” and turn the tide.

It dawned on me recently to write about a recent struggle I’ve been dealing with – this Blog!

Hopefully, through this case study, we can gleam lessons that you can apply on whatever financial goals you have in order to achieve success.

Case Study – This Blog

I am struggling mightily to turn this blog, SportofMoney.com, into a success.

When I started this blog, one of my goals was to publish a high quality post on a consistent schedule of once a week.

The Struggles I Have With This Goal Of Posting Once Per Week 

Writing has never been my strong suite. I would say in general I am a lot more analytical and good with numbers than with words and letters.

There is a reason why I chose to go into finance for a career and not into sales.

I struggled tremendously in school in writing. In addition, I was never an avid reader which probably led to my struggles in the first place.

Not surprisingly, creating a new blog post takes a lot of my time and energy. Words do not come easy for me. I wish it did but that is not the case.

I’ve set out early on at the start of this blog to write 1 blog post a week as a goal. Additionally, the recommended length of a personal financial post should be 2,000+ words long.

That usually amounts to 4 to 6 pages in a MS Word document using 12 size fonts. Imagine having to write 4 to 6 pages of material a week.

That was a taunting task for me. I cannot imagine how someone like Sam Dogan at FinancialSamurai.com is able to write 3 posts a week with high quality.

I didn’t even think about doing 3 posts a week. That would be setting myself up for failure early on and I wanted this blog to succeed.

Posts I Had In My Back Pocket Allowed Me To Keep To My Posting Schedule Initially

Even going for 1 post a week is quite a challenge for me.

But fortunately I was able to keep up that schedule for a bit of time. Now, there was a little planning involved in that as well.

I wrote about 5 posts in anticipation of launching this blog.

On weeks when I struggled to keep up with the writing schedule or on weeks when I was traveling for vacation, I would publish one of the posts I had in my back pocket.

That allowed me to keep to the posting schedule of 1 post per week for the first part of 2019 when I launched this blog.

Additionally, I also planned out post topics to write so that made it easier for me to not have to come up with a topic.

Unable To Keep Up With My Goal

However, by the later part of this year, I started to slip in my writing schedule. Instead of writing 1 post per week, I was shooting for 3 posts per month equating to 1 every 10 days.

After I exhausted all my back up posts I wrote before launching this blog, I couldn’t keep up with the original weekly posting schedule.

And even 3 posts per month became a struggle for me in the later part of the year. With family commitments, work, rental properties and other time consuming activities, I didn’t prioritize time on my blog anymore.

Not to mention, it was becoming too much like work posting instead of being fun. I just decided to take a break.

Also, I was not having a lot of success at it. I read certain bloggers were able to grow their readership by leaps and bounds months after months.

Some bloggers were able to achieve thousands of pages in the first month or two, and then tens of thousands within the first 3 months.

Here I was still stuck in thousands of page views per month after about 9 months at work. My monthly page views increased the first 3 months, then stabilized, and actually dipped in the later part of this year. It was quite discouraging to say the least.

Here Is My Current Approach To Attacking My Goal In Order To Stack Success In My Favor

Do you also have struggles in achieving your financial goals?

You might have competing priorities and decided to put your goal on hold. Are you in a lull and find it hard to push forward to your goal.

Is it just too hard for to dedicate time? Or maybe you are not getting the results you have hoped for and felt discouraged.

I’m going to take a different approach in tackling the lack of success to this blog. Maybe the approach below can help you achieve your goals as well.

Redefine The Goal And Ensure It Is Manageable

The first thing I’ve asked myself recently is what do I want out of this blog and if I want it to be successful.

The answer is obviously yes. If that is the main goal for the blog then I need to do things that would ensure the success of this blog.

Obviously, creating content and posting the content is one important component of ensuring this blog’s success.

When I was trying to stick to a very challenging schedule such as posting once a week, it became such an onerous task for me.

I was really struggling with that schedule. Eventually, I notched it down to 1 post every 10 days.

But even that became a chore. Ultimately, given my overall hectic schedule, I was no longer able to keep to that posting schedule and felt discouraged to continue on.

I basically set too ambitious of a goal and it was just too challenging for me to meet it. Because I felt bad not hitting that goal, I decided to give up all together.

I ended up only publishing one post in October and didn’t write or publish a single post in the month of November.

Now this would never result in a successful blog.

I’ve decided now to re-think my posting schedule.

I know some bloggers out there set specific posting goals. I would like to do the same and have tried that route. But it didn’t work so well for me.

Therefore, I’m going to give myself more leeway. I’ll try again to post more regularly, maybe 2 or 3 times a month

Publishing even one new post a month trumps not publishing any new content at all.

Hopefully, with this new mindset I’ll be able to write without the pressure of constantly having to produce.

Making the task of writing and content production more manageable for me should hopefully encourage me to keep at it for longer.

I think the same can be applied to your personal financial situation. If you set impossible goals, they might discourage you from continuing on in the long run.

There might be short term success but unsustainable over the long run.

One example is the goal of saving 70 percent of your income as touted by some of the personal finance blog out there.

Maybe achieving a savings rate of 70 percent might be possible for you for a month or two, but then you increasingly might find saving 70 percent impossible to sustain over the long run.

Instead of sticking to a 70 percent savings rate, change it to a savings rate more manageable and realistic.

Maybe by notching the rate down to 50% you can save at that rate indefinitely as opposed to giving up on savings all together because you couldn’t keep up with an insanely high rate.

Get Rid Of Items I Don’t Enjoy Doing

I’ve decided to also get rid of items I don’t enjoy doing in hopes of being able to post more content.

If you have read any of my past blog posts, you would have noticed a few pictures. I usually try to aim for 4 to 5 pictures in my post in total.

Sourcing pictures can be time consuming. Not to mention, I would need to size them in a program I have, upload them, incorporate them in my post, and complete information about the pictures such as the title and a description.

All of this led to increased time when publishing a post. I didn’t appreciate doing that work. It just wasn’t fun for me.

Going forward, I’ve decided to not include any pictures on my post unless the value I think it provides far outstrips the time required.

This should save me some time going forward and it gets rid of one item I don’t enjoy doing.

Hopefully, this can result in me having longer longevity in continuing producing content for this blog.

You can also look to get rid of tasks you don’t enjoy doing in order to benefit your personal financial position.

For example, you might like to keep a detailed budget of your income and expense items. I am a big fan of creating a budget.

After a period of time, you might find it harder and harder to dedicate time on the budget. A detailed budget might just be too time consuming.

If that is the case, then there are quicker ways to get to the point of a budget instead of spending time creating a detailed budget.

You can keep track of your net worth and shoot for a specific dollar or percentage increase period over period.

You can aim to hit that number without constructing a detailed budget to get there.

You just have to be consciously aiming for that net worth number on every expense spent.

Make It More Convenient To Get Things Done

When I write, I also want to make that process as convenient as possible.

It makes sense to me to make it as convenient as possible given I am not really good at it and don’t want to have even the slightest excuse to not write.

I used to write on my desktop but that would require me to sit in front of my computer desk with limited flexibility and mobility when it comes to location.

Then I started writing on my laptop. Despite having a Mac Book Air, it was still bulky and inconvenient to carry with me everywhere. Therefore, there are restrictions to writing.

Now I write using my iPad and keyboard attachment. It is incredibly portable and quick to start up to get writing.

This has made writing more convenient for me. This level of convenience is appreciated.

You can also make your finances more convenient. Set up automatic payment for your household expenses, 401(k) contributions, and use Mint or a comparable company to keep track of your budget.

Making things more convenient will help you achieve your financial goals a lot more easily.

Celebrate Minor Success And Use It For Motivation To Keep Going

Another item that got me back to a renewed focus on my blog is a recent minor success.

I noticed after a while, the visitors and page views on my blog started to go up the past month or so.

That is because for a few search terms, it was a top 2 or 3 result in Google. This led to increased traffic.

While the traffic isn’t massive, it did give me a little boast of motivation to continue going.

It shows that over time, if I keep this up, who knows how the blog will grow. Maybe it can continue to move up in search terms in Google and my readership might explode.

Be sure to celebrate your minor successes as well when it comes to your personal financial situation. Did you just pay off your student debt after spending the past 5 years paying it down? Go out and celebrate.

Did you just close on your first home after saving 10 years for the down payment? That is definitely fit for celebration.

Continue to celebrate your successes, no matter how minor to keep yourself motivation to keep going.

Find New Items To Get Excited About

After about a year, I finally sent out my first newsletter earlier this month.

The reason why it took me so long is because I never took the time to figure out how to do it.

I just didn’t have time to learn something new given I was struggling to keep up with my posting schedule.

But I just recently spent some time learning how to produce the newsletter. While it wasn’t a lengthy exercise, I now am excited to continue to connect with my readers through another venue.

This is a group of readers who are interested enough with my blog to subscribe to the email list.

On your finance journey, find new items to get excited about. If you are done paying down your student loan, set your sight on saving for retirement.

If you have enough exposure to the S&P 500 index fund, set your sight on building out a real estate investment portfolio. Who knows – maybe one day you can build a real estate empire.

Find new things to learn and be excited about. It is not only the destination that matters, but also the journey.

Engage A Network For Encouragement

I have a few fellow readers and personal finance bloggers who I interact with periodically either through my comment section, their blogs’ comment section, or via email.

Their engagement keeps me motivated as well. It shows that someone cares about the content I am producing enough to provide feedback or spend their time contributing in the form of leaving a comment.

Sending out my first newsletter is another way I engage my readers. That is why it is so exciting for me to have published my first newsletter recently.

On your financial path, don’t forget to look for like-minded people or people who are motivational for you to continue with the success.

Let your significant other know how well you are doing so that you two can celebrate together.

If you have a small real estate portfolio, attend real estate investor group meetings to learn from each other and to motivate each other to do better.

Engaging in a network of like-minded people or people who can provide encouragement can keep you going for a lot longer.

To The Audience: Have you gleamed any lessons from your failures or struggles? Do you have real life examples of applying some of the items I have listed above to success? What do you do in order to celebrate your minor successes?

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Assess Your Situation To Make Smart Moves

SoM @ SportofMoney.com

Many people work hard to better their physical and mental health. What about their financial health?

I started this blog back in 2019 to help people better their financial health as well.

My financial journey began with tens of thousands in student loan debt. Over the span of 20 years, I am close to achieving financial independence.

I truly believe anyone can get to strong financial health. Hopefully, this blog can help you on your financial journey to greater wealth and financial independence.

You can read more about me here.

Thank you for visiting. Come again soon!