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Establish Realistic Goals

Your values are the things in life that are most important to you. Your goals are the accomplishments or steps you must establish along the way to make your values become realities.

Goal setting is easy. Goal reaching is tough! Use this form(PDF) to sort your goals into three major categories, short-term, mid-term, and long-term.

  • Short term - those goals you can accomplish within about a year
  • Mid-term - those goals that can be accomplished in about five years.
  • Long-term - those goals that will take more than five years to accomplish.

List about five goals for each of the major categories. Be specific. Perhaps you would like to graduate from college within the next year, go to Hawaii within three years, get married and have a child within five years. Hopefully your goals will be directly tied to the values you determined to be important to you.

Keep your lists of goals along with your most important values cards. Adjust your goals based on those you reach and those you are still working on or determine to abandon or change. Now you have built some of the beginning basics of your resource management!

Congratulations! It's YOUR MONEY and you are well on your way to using it YOUR WAY!


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OCAP believes that financial literacy and understanding the financial aid process are critical aspects of college planning and student success. OCAP staff who work with students, parents, educators and community partners in the areas of personal finance education, state and federal financial aid, and student loan management do not provide financial, investment, legal, and/or tax advice. This website and all information provided is for general educational purposes only, and is not intended to be construed as financial, investment, legal, and/or tax advice.