MICHELLE SMALENBERGER, CFP ®

Have you ever found yourself with so many things you want to accomplish?  Then you have to figure out how to get started to get those things done. I want to share with you something I noticed recently that affected many other things.  It felt like I was accomplishing many things just by focusing on one.

I wanted to set an amount or a number that we could stay under each week for groceries.  For us we decided we would try to spend $100 or less each week. Because of JUST this ONE thing that we set I noticed several things happening as a result:

Eat Healthier

In order to stay under our allotted amount each week I started shopping at a few different stores because the prices were cheaper for different items at various places. Because we were buying more vegetables and fruits to stay under the amount we were actually eating healthier! This is a goal we want to work toward also, but it in this case it was simply a result of the dollar amount we had set for another goal.

Exercise

Because we were eating healthier we felt like doing healthy things, so we started spending more time outside as a family exercising.  We would go to the track and walk while our daughter rode her bike. Again, this is also an additional goal we want to get better at, and because of the initial spending goal we started spending more time exercising.

Focused

As we were eating healthy, exercising, and reaching our spending goal we were able to be more focused.  This could be for a variety of reasons, maybe because in order to reach our grocery spending goal we had to plan our meals carefully so we didn’t have to spend time each day figuring out what we would eat.

Lose Weight

If we’re living a healthier lifestyle the weight loss should follow too.

The Result

I started thinking about all of these things and when I looked back it was really because of ONE small goal.  Instead of focusing on five goals at once just pick ONE and see if it begins to have an affect toward a variety of goals you’re trying to achieve!