Once you have a correct perspective on wealth and understand the key principles for understanding and using wealth wisely, the next important step is to begin your Personal Financial Plan by setting your personal and family goals. The purpose of this section is to help you determine and write down what you want to accomplish in life. Someone wrote, "A goal not written is only a wish" (“Strengthen Your Sense of Self-Worth,” Liahona, Aug. 1998, 42).

My purpose is to help you write down your wishes, transform those wishes into goals, and thereby make your wishes come true. In this section I will share a few steps with you that I have found helpful as I have considered the goals I wanted to accomplish during my lifetime. I hope that the suggestions will be useful in your life.

President Ezra Taft Benson counseled us to set goals:

Every accountable child of God needs to set goals, short- and long-range goals. A man who is pressing forward to accomplish worthy goals can soon put despondency under his feet, and once a goal is accomplished, others can be set up. Some will be continuing goals. . . . Now there is a lifetime goal—to walk in his steps, to perfect ourselves in every virtue as he has done, to seek his face, and to work to make our calling and election sure” (Ezra Taft Benson, “Do Not Despair,” Ensign, Nov. 1974, 65).

Setting personal goals is not simply writing a list of things you would “like” to accomplish. Rather, it is a process of understanding yourself, your aspirations, your desires, and your values and then trying to understand what Heavenly Father wants you to accomplish. Once you have determined these things, you must then combine your understanding of yourself and what Heavenly Father desires for you into a plan of action to help you become your best self. On the subject of becoming, Elder Marvin J. Ashton commented:

True happiness is not made in getting something. True happiness is becoming something. This can be done by being committed to lofty goals. We cannot become something without commitment (Marvin J. Ashton, “The Word is Commitment,” Ensign, Nov. 1983, 61).

There are four objectives for this section:

1. Learn how wise financial planning can help you achieve your goals.
2. Understand the requirement for your Personal Financial Plan.
3. Identify what you want to accomplish in life.
4. Understand and apply the principles of effective goal setting.