It’s February. The conversational buzz around goal setting that comes like clockwork every new year has more or less died down to a flatline, where it normally stays for the rest of the year. I’ve engaged goal setting in different parts of my career. I believe in it as a useful practice. But there’s certainly a way to do it right and a way to do it (as we’ve all done) where the resolutions are forgotten by month two.
For me, I find forgotten resolutions are an effect of the goal being impersonal. Earlier in my career, I might’ve learned from a mentor or read in a book something I should be aiming for: a sales goal I should have within a specific amount of months, a follower count across my professional networks, or some other external metric of success. Goals I set that way often faded, or made me feel lesser than when I didn’t achieve them.
I remember that changing after I read a book by an old friend, Christian Busch. Christian is the author of Serendipity. The book is a masterclass on putting yourself in situations where opportunity is more likely to find you. That was a turning point in the way I thought about goal setting and attracting the outcomes I wanted into my own life.
Goal setting has been a game changer in my career ever since. I remember upping the ask on the initial fundraising round for Vungle to an amount that felt way out in left field. That was a goal I set based on a mentor’s advice, but it felt like it personally resonated—I gained energy when I thought about it, and it stuck in my mind. Not only were we able to raise the higher amount, it was also that extra margin that saved us and brought us to the next stage. In my experience, the power of that kind of goal setting is unmatched.
This year, we’re at a unique market moment. The pandemic recovery has shaped new trends, and the global technological uptake is bringing more niche conversations center stage. I believe that every market observer should have two kinds of goals walking with them through the rest of 2022. Following is an overview of those goals—the details of which depend on the math of each individual.
Investment Goal: What’s In A Number
For new or established investors, I think an investment goal is always a must-have. Regardless of someone’s personal buy in to the ‘law of attraction,’ having a base goal with which to vet prospective investments, consider all due diligence, and measure the progress of different strategies is really the only way to commit to a numbers-based investment strategy. This goal is numeric, not emotional—I’m still an avid believer in taking emotion out of the equation.
A good investing goal is specific, realistic, and considerate of the market as it currently stands. It’s great to know the history of an industry or of an asset class, but that does little in accounting for the myriad of counter factors that are alive and in motion in the market today. An investment goal is only as good as it is relevant, and its relevance is informed by the amount of information on which the figure is based. Investors who succeed in creating strong goals often have a more informed strategy, and achieve a better exit, than their counterparts who might be going in with less end-point visibility.
Investors should be consistently reminded that great investing doesn’t require much (if any) guesswork. There are great, in-depth reports regarding the expected annual returns per unit of risk across the major asset classes. For less traditional investments or niche focuses, like short-term rentals in the real estate space, there are ample tools reporting live time earnings and averages as the industry changes. Those figures are immensely important to an investor, who should be planning for multi-tiered performance possibilities. Using these numbers, investing goals can be much more realistic than they would otherwise, and investors will have a strong picture of the landscape before they become emotionally involved (which is more or less inevitable, even when we do everything in our power not to make it so).
‘Making money’ isn’t specific enough as a goal. What does real financial freedom look like? More than numbers in the bank, what would a successful and sustainable investment strategy mean for the other parts of an investor’s life? With more clarity around those big-picture goals, investment goals can become more specified. Working backwards, investors can have concrete goal posts regarding where they want to be in their net worth at different stages. They can know how much liquid capital they need, and how much risk they can afford. With those bigger questions asked, they can move into the smaller questions that make up a strong due diligence strategy.
Intake Goal: How To Quantify Learning Objectives
The second category of goal-setting that seems crucial for 2022 relates to learning. Right now, there’s a whirlwind of excitement, conversation, opportunity, and misinformation around the rise of web3, the dawn of the metaverse, the opportunity in alt coins, NFTs, and cryptocurrencies—the list goes on. In my life, I’ve noticed that the smartest people in my circle aren’t the ones who ‘know’ everything. They’re the ones who know how (and when) to learn.
On that note, now seems like a crucial time to learn about some part of that world. There’s no need to be overwhelmed by the novelty of it all, nor is there reason to feel like it all needs to be tackled at once. Learning can begin based on interest; are you still wondering what all that Dogecoin talk was about? Are you offended at the thought of spending real-life capital on a digital real estate? (Me too.)
Wherever those areas of curiosity are, follow them and set your goals accordingly. Maybe a learning goal looks like reading two books from experts who hold opposing opinions. Maybe it’s making a one hour slot in your weekly agenda to engage with someone in your network on the topic, or a decision to listen to audiobooks on the topic on your way to the gym. However it fits in, learning goals provide a useful offset to investment goals, because they have to do with intake rather than result.
We can’t all ensure that we made the right bet on a stock. But opening a book or calling a friend are under our control. It’s important, I think, to have both kinds of goals—a powerful vision of an outcome, and an unshakeable commitment to a process. Holding both goals throughout 2022 will make good things happen, but more importantly, will give a sense of purpose, duty, and hope along the way.