Goal Setting is a key step to the financial planning process, and helping clients achieve goals is the value I provide. Everyone would like to be wealthy, but that is not a goal. To me, it only becomes a goal when we can state a clear, tangible objective. So, if you’d like to retire, we’d calculate how to make that happen and develop a specific goal like “accumulate $2.1 million dollars by 2026.” That long-term goal gives us a timeline and dictates what we need to do each year and month to make your goal a reality. We can observe if you are on track and make adjustments as needed in the years ahead. The key step though is translating an ambiguous desire into a goal which is measurable.