Building a Roadmap to Financial Well-Being: Part Two - Deciding Where You Want to Go

Many people aspire to what we call financial well-being – feeling secure, prepared, and in control of your money so you can make choices that support the life you want. But in an era of rising costs and ongoing uncertainty, that sense of stability can feel harder than ever to achieve. The truth is, financial well-being isn’t built overnight or through drastic changes. It comes from consistent, purposeful actions that add up over time. 

Most of us understand the value of having a financial plan, yet creating one can feel overwhelming or unclear. That’s why we’ve put together a straightforward three-step framework to guide you. Last quarter, we started with Step One - Assessing Where You’re Starting From. 

Today, we’re moving on to Step Two - Deciding Where you Want to Go. 

Setting meaningful financial goals is one of the most powerful steps you can take to improve your overall financial well-being. Goals give your money direction. They help you move from reacting to your finances to actively shaping them.

When you have clear goals – whether it’s building an emergency fund, paying off debt, saving for a home, or reducing financial stress – you’re far more likely to follow through. That’s because meaningful goals create focus, motivation, and a sense of purpose behind each financial decision. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by competing priorities or rising costs, you have a roadmap to guide you.

Choose Short-,  Medium- and Long-Term Goals 

The best way to get started is to break down your goals into short, medium and long-term. This helps you better understand what you need to work towards quickly and what you can take a longer-term approach with. Goals are very personal, and are influenced by your family, friends and the environment and circumstances you live and grew up in. What matters most, is that they matter to you. Here are some ideas to help you get started:

Short-Term Goals

• Creating an emergency fund

• Repaying accumulated debt

• Create and stick to a monthly spending plan

• Saving for a major purchase

• Start contributing to employer retirement or savings programs

• Build a “buffer fund” to avoid living paycheque-to-paycheque

• Reduce unnecessary subscriptions or spending leaks

• Track monthly spending for the first time

Medium-Term Goals

• Buying a home

• Saving for a vehicle purchase

• Funding education

• Funding professional development

• Building investments

• Saving for childcare costs, parental leave, or school-related expenses

• Planning and saving for a significant trip or experience

• Building a cushion to support a potential career change

• Improving your credit score

Long-Term Goals

• Aiming for financial independence

• Paying off a mortgage

• Planning for retirement

• Saving for major home renovations

• Building generational wealth

• Preparing financially for aging parents or long-term care

• Leaving a legacy

Keep in mind that this categorization is based on one, generalized perspective. Where you categorize your own goals depends largely on where you’re at in your journey in life – for some, retirement might be unimaginably far into the future, whereas for others, it might be right around the corner. 

Use a Goal-Setting Framework 

Once you’ve established some goals, it’s time to develop them a bit further, into something that is clearly defined and actionable. The best way to do that is to choose a goal-setting framework to help you better understand your own definitions of success. Here are a few suggestions to help you get started:

• SMART Goal Framework: This is perhaps one of the most well known goal-setting frameworks. SMART is an acronym for: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This helps you establish some key parameters around achieving your goals.

• OKRs: This framework focuses on Objectives (a big, meaningful direction) and Key Results (2-4 measurable indicators of progress) and is used widely in organizations - but works at the personal level too. 

• PACT Goals: This system is designed for real-life behaviour change, rather than perfection and is based on choosing goals that are Purposeful (connected to your values), Actionable (focused on actions, not outcomes), Continuous (something you repeat or improve over time) and Trackable (behaviours you can monitor). 

• Backward Goal-Setting: Reverse-engineer the steps by defining the end state first, then list the step just before it, and the one before that, and continue backwards until you reach today. This helps reveal dependencies and realistic timelines.  

• Systems-Based Approach: This approach focuses on the habits and systems - the daily behaviours that move you towards your goal - rather than the goal itself. For example, instead of ‘save $5,000’, you build a ‘save $50 weekly’ system. 

Setting thoughtful financial goals helps employees make the most of their workplace benefits. When you know what you’re working toward, things like retirement plans, matching programs, insurance coverage, and employee assistance resources become tools that support your journey – not confusing options you set aside for “later.”

Take a moment this week to write down your top 3-5 financial goals. If you’d like help planning how to best use your benefits to reach them, contact your Benefits Advisor, Shannon, to get the conversation started.