Making Cents: Stop, start and continue to your goals

I listened to an excellent podcast over Christmas about setting new year goals and there was a suggestion from one contributor that I thought was excellent and I’m going to share it with you in a moment.
But before I do and if you happen to be in that, what do I want to happen in the year ahead mindset, I’m going to ask you to tap on the brakes for a second and ask you not to rush ahead with writing your new years’ financial goals just yet because one of the best things you could do before you launch into listing out what you’d like to achieve in 2025, is first look back to what happened in 2024.
The single biggest mistake people make is jumping too quickly into thinking what goals they’d like to accomplish over the next year without first looking back to see what happened in the year gone by. If we don’t, we miss out on assessing where we stand right now and reflecting on the lessons we can take from the last year, both good and bad.
The past leaves clues and you’ve got to learn from them and find out what it is you are doing or not doing that is causing you to fail and succeed. Because if you’re not achieving your goals and continuing to do what you’ve always done is obviously a sign that something has to change, which is why looking back will help you create a better plan for the year ahead.
And looking back is just going to help you that’s all, it doesn’t mean that it will guarantee you’ll achieve whatever it is you want to happen this year, it will just make you aware and remind you what did happen. And when you do reflect, you’ll be able to see what were the reasons some of your goals were and weren’t achieved last year.
And the goals you didn’t accomplish could have been down to something beyond your control, or perhaps you just procrastinated and didn’t follow through or maybe it was just plain laziness on your part. But at least being honest and knowing the reasons why and having that cold hard data to look back on will help you to avoid making the same mistakes again this year because now you’ll know what you have to do differently.
So, you have to look back if you want to move forward in a meaningful way and I’m going to help you do this by completing a very simple exercise and it came from that podcast I was telling you about.
What was suggested people should do is known as the start, stop and continue exercise.
It’s a three-part retrospective model that essentially gives you feedback by asking yourself three questions, and they are:
1.What you should start doing.
2.What you should stop doing and,
3.What you should continue doing.
And this model isn’t anything new, it’s something organisations and business and life coaches have been using for years and they use it because it gets to the point very quickly.
And I thought this was something that could easily be applied to our finances and it could be very effective. And it could be applied at any time of the year but given that we are in that new year resolution mode, I thought this is a particularly good time to give it a go.
You’re going to need a phone or a computer of a writing pad or a back of the envelope whatever suits you to write this list down and once you have them all down you can then decide to act on the areas that are most important to you, and they should jump off the page or the screen at you.
Okay, I’m going to give you some suggestions as to what a list could look like:
I’m going to stop:
-overspending each month
-leaving money in an account earning 0.01%
-putting off making a will
-paying the minimum amount on my credit card balance each month
-spending too much on the décor of my home
-ignoring my annual pension statement
-taking on unnecessary debt
-not asking for help when I need advice
-getting financial advice from work colleagues or relatives or from social media posts
-blaming everyone else for the state of my finances
-travelling long distances to work
-working with my present employer because I have no clear path to advancement with them

I’m going to start:
-overpaying on your mortgage because I know it will reduce the term remaining
-tracking my spending each month so I can review where my money is actually going
-reviewing my home insurance cover
-reviewing my life assurance cover
-building up and boosting my emergency fund
-familiarise myself with my company's benefits i.e. death in service, income protection etc.
-taking more notice of pension and annual returns and funds you are invested in
-make myself more valuable to my employer so I can earn more
-saving for a deposit on a house that I hope to buy in 3 or 4- or 5-years’ time
-talking to my partner about our finances more often
-a new account for our children and gift them as much as we can up to the allowable annual threshold of €3,000
-increasing my pension contributions by 2% (only a suggested amount, increase them by as much as you can)
-building my LinkedIn profile
-writing the business plan that I have for a new business idea of mine

I’m going to continue:
-with the share purchase programs that are available through my employer
-saving 50% of whatever my salary increase is going to be this year
-updating my monthly budgeting tracker
-saving 15% of my salary each month (again just an example %)
-having quarterly reviews with my financial adviser
These three lists are for suggestion only and there might be some things in your start list that will be in others stop lists, but I hope you get the idea. And I’ve done this exercise myself and I’ve found it to be excellent because I’m giving myself feedback into what actions I should be doing and what I shouldn’t be doing and what I should continue doing if I want to improve my finances.
And perhaps you’ll need help carrying out this exercise and if you do, don’t be afraid to ask your financial adviser or get one if you haven’t got one, because maybe you’re too close to this and you can’t see what you need to start or stop or continue and having a third party who can look at a distance and give you honest unemotional feedback is the way forward.
But once you know what you should and shouldn’t be doing the next key thing is to take action because without following through, this exercise is pointless.
And what I’ve done to make sure I don’t forget what I’m supposed to do is two things (1) I’ve written them down because if I didn’t, they’d be trapped in my mind and not real and (2) I’ve set reminders on my phone telling me what I’m supposed to stop or start doing and these reminders pop up every other day and I won’t remove them until I’ve followed through and acted on them. So, these reminders are bugging me and nudging me into taking action.
I think this stop, start and continue exercise is worth a try because it's quick and easy to use and the most important thing is it gives you great feedback and great insights into what actions you need to implement if you want to improve your finances in the year ahead.

Liam Croke is MD of Harmonics Financial Ltd, based in Plassey. He can be contacted at liam@harmonics.ie or www.harmonics.ie