Financial Goal Setting (Not A How To)

A Little Humor
Hey everyone, it's that time of the year health club membership are up everyone is on the bandwagon to loose weight, eat right you know who you are.  Your all excited and your saying "Girrrl I'm gonna loose all this weight off my A$$".  Now fellas if you are echoing those same words well that's just a topic for a different day.

Setting Financial goals is just as important as your health goals; it's like we know what to do but sometimes we disconnect from the goal.

A Coach-Um Up
Q-What are the motivating factors to setting this goal?
(Example: are these goals motivated by deeper values and interest, or by social pressures, perhaps guilt.)

Staying Focused On The Outcome
For many years and even today we view goals in terms of Short and Long Term goals.  In my opinion when we set goals and categorize our goals this can be very challenging especially if the individual is not accustomed to setting goals let alone achieving financial goals.

This is in the book on How To set and achieve short and long term goals. The real "How To" book should be called "How In The Hell Can You Tell Me How To Set and Achieve Financial Goals When You Don't Know A Damn Thing About Me" now that's a "How To"

Listen the important thing to do is:

1. Identify the behaviors that manifest when you start to disconnect from the goal. (Is it in certain social groups, is it the late night infomercials that lure you in to buying items that you don't need, is it a family member that always seems to know when your check comes etc..) 
2. When you begin to understand what the set of circumstances were that caused you to disconnect from the goal, achieving the goals become easier.
3. If you struggle with holding yourself accountable for your action plan you can always connect with me at kgrayer@fmiedu.org 

Thank You For Reading

I'm Out Kenny G.

Here is the Coach-Um Up Questions of The Day

1. What social situations (having people around you) affect how I deal with money


 

Financial Planning Vs. Financial Coaching A Heated Debate

Hey everyone this is Kenneth I recently had a conversation with a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) regarding Financial Coaching and let me tell you it was interesting well actually that is an understatement to say the lease.  It actually became a heated debate whether Financial Coaching techniques were  useful in helping a client achieve financial success.

This individual asked me what I felt was a Financial Planners job description was. I explained in my "Opinion" of course with a smile, so I said "the difference between a Financial Coaching practice and that of a Financial Planner is that the planners objective is to provide advice, this individual agreed, and the education process was a means to introduce himself to the community and the end result was to sell various securities instruments hence more of an educate to sell model".  Well interestingly enough this individual took offense that I would suggest such a thing so I asked "such a thing like what" this individual said educate to sell products.  Interesting I thought; so I asked how do you make money he confirmed through the sell of financial instruments so I asked a question, Q- What are you trying to achieve? this individual went on about how successful his practice was and his clients portfolios are worth x-amount of dollars which of course was ob-seen amounts of money "Not The Norm" and how he takes the time to get to know his clients.


Well after debating Financial Coaching vs. Financial Planning with this person for an hour we shook hands and went our separate ways.

In summary the main objectives of a coach is to listen deeply to the coachee and be their as an accountability partner to help the coachees improve their position by learning about themselves, make empowering decisions, set and achieve goals, resolve issues all through using effective questioning rather than simply presenting a solution or the coaches viewpoint.

Kenneth Grayer talks about Financial Coaching

The Coaching Industry

The Coaching industry itself is divided into several coaching platforms; such as Executive Coaching, Life Coaching, Entrepreneurship Coaching, Small Business Development Coaching, Money Coaching, Credit Coaching and so on. The one that I can not seem to rap my brain around is the Friendship Coach.  My understanding of Coaching is that a coach is not a friend but a strategic partner. 

Educate to Sell

There are organizations that use the word coaching to sell or license financial products.  We call this platform educate to sell.  Now I'm not say that selling products or licensing products is wrong.  What I'm saying is that if your coach is selling or licensing products you should not consider this individual a coach unless they have the proper Financial Coach training and credentialing.  

What is A Financial Coach: 

In my opinion a Financial Coach is an accountability & strategic partner, a provider of perspective, a motivation partner with an emphasis on forward thinking, a focus partner and an intention partner.

What Skills Should a  Financial Coach poses.

Financial Coaching is about transformation.  In order to transform ones Financial Behavior, a coach should be skilled in Behavior Modification techniques, Change management  skills as a component of Behavior Modification, Motivational Interviewing skills, Adhere to a standard code of ethics & conduct and Basic Coach training. 

 Are The How To's Coaching?

Americans have been bombarded with all the how to build credit, how to invest in stocks, or how to create a budget and so on.  If all the how to books, seminars, workshops on how to build wealth, manage money, build credit, invest in the stock market or create a budget  were working, our debt would not stands at $2.4 trillion - and many Americans are “just making it”, and dealing with huge financial stresses on a daily basis. 

In Summary

Being a Financial Coach takes time, patience and commitment to ongoing research and education.

At FMI we"Create Conversation For Change."  that empowers the coachee to own, and commit to their financial success.