5-4-3-2-1 Goal Setting Towards Financial Fulfillment

The 5-4-3-2-1 is a simple to follow method. This method allows you to break down your goals into manageable pieces in specific time frames. The 5-4-3-2-1 stands for:

5 weeks

4 months

2 days

1 hour

The theory behind this technique is that by breaking your goals into small and achievable pieces will help you achieve them faster.

Getting started

As with any of the goal setting methods we will discuss, it is important to know what your goals are before starting. While these can be directly related to financial goals, Ie. Pay off credit card debt, your goals can be tangentially related to finances as well. Ie, travel to every continent at least once. One way to do this is set a timer for 5-10 minutes and brainstorm a list of all your goals that you would like to achieve in the next 5 years. Once you have compiled a list of goals, try to narrow it down to those goals which are most important to you and list them by order of importance.

Understanding your motivation

Psychology plays such a strong role in our ability to achieve our goals. Ryder Carroll, creator of the 5-4-3-2-1 method states that; “If happiness is the result of our actions, then we need to stop asking ourselves how to be happy. Rather, we should be asking ourselves how to be.” It is important therefore, once you have narrowed down your goals, to think about what is motivating you towards these goals and why they are important to you.

Some questions you can ask yourselves to help you think about this is:

1. What will you gain from achieving this goal?

2. How will achieving this goal make you feel?

Your motivation and the answer to these questions will help you keep focused on your goals without getting distracted by other influences as you work towards them.

So how does the 5-4-3-2-1 work?

As a reminder, 5 stands for your 5-year goal. This is your main goal which all subsequent goals are working towards helping you accomplish. This is where you should state your reason for this goal.

4 stands for smaller goals that support your big goal and can be achieved within a 4-month period. 3 stands for goals or tasks that support your 4-month goals and can be achieved within 3 weeks. 2 stands for tasks that can be completed within 2 days and help you to get to your 3-week goal. And finally, 1 stands for the tasks that will support your 2 day or 3 weeks goals and can be finished within 1 hour.

For an in depth “how to” for setting up this method, we like @reflectwithraksha’s tutorial which can be found here.