If you’re interested in improving your understanding of goal setting, banking, or even your credit rating, Solid Ground’s Financial Fitness Boot Camp (FFBC) has you covered.

In the last workshop of this four-part series, Goal Setting, participants learn to set achievable goals, helping them improve their ability to make financial (and other!) plans for the future.

In the first workshop, Budgeting, Noel Lerner, FFBC/Tenant Counselor, walks participants through the process of building a monthly budget, and they share their own tips for cutting costs. In the second one, Credit & Credit Repair, Noel covers how to understand and protect your credit. In the third one, Banking, attendees learn about their banking options and the best ways to maximize your savings.

Set achievable goals

While improving your ability to save money can help everyone, it’s important to keep in mind what you’re saving it for. While Noel shares plenty of helpful tips about long-term goals, she also makes sure to let Boot Camp participants think about their own hopes and dreams.

Even though each person’s goals may be different, there are still helpful strategies for making sure that you can get where you want to be.

During the last workshop, Noel walks participants through these different strategies, ranging from making sure that a goal is specific to figuring out what the timeline should be for getting there. She also takes care to connect these new goal setting skills with the financial skills that Boot Camp participants have picked up over the past four weeks.

Understand your situation

While goal setting skills are helpful in every situation, Noel also makes sure that each participant comes away with a plan for reaching one of their own goals. This way pushes you to figure out what you’re looking for, your particular skills for getting there, and the things that might get in the way.

Noel’s experience setting her own goals and hearing from past Boot Camp participants helps her give specific advice that can help sidestep common pitfalls – which can also be avoided by using financial skills from past workshops, including budgeting.

Even though the process sounds stressful, Noel makes sure to emphasize that there is always an achievable goal somewhere in the future, and that even “impossible” goals might surprise you. Her approach makes sure that everyone comes away optimistic about achieving whatever goal they set their mind to!

Remind yourself where you want to be

In addition to setting strong goals, Noel emphasizes that one of the best ways to achieve your goals is to remind yourself where you want to be.

Noel walks everyone through creating visualizations of their goals – something that has regularly helped even the most successful people, including actor Jim Carrey, according to a story Noel tells. One of the best ways to do this is to create a “vision board,” which can help you picture your future, instead of thinking about it as an unachievable dream.

Along with being particularly helpful, vision boarding is also fun, leaving participants talking and laughing together as they help each other think about how to visualize where they want to be. This workshop is a great end to the Boot Camp series, letting people pull on all of their new (or just newly refreshed) financial skills to get everyone where they want to be!

Note: While participants must attend all four sessions to receive a Certificate of Completion, the workshops are offered quarterly at Solid Ground, so makeup sessions may be available! Registration for the next Boot Camp series starting October 2, 2019 is open.