1. The role of financial planning is to help you learn to manage your finances so that you can achieve your personal goals. Financial planning, if properly done, will help you understand the purpose of wealth in your life (ownership), become a better steward (stewardship), understand what you can become (agency), and make better and wiser choices (accountability).
2. It is important to set goals because goals are the stars by which we set our sights. Setting and achieving goals helps you to achieve the things that are important to you. It is important to write down your goals because a goal not written down is only a wish. Henry David Thoreau wrote:

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them (Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854).

This class is to help you put foundations under your castles.

3. Real goals are things that we really want (and perhaps even need) to accomplish, not just wishes or thoughts that something would be nice. Real goals are goals that are set with the help of Heavenly Father, and they are typically much more serious that other goals. Generally, real goals take an eternal perspective (D&C 43:34).
4. Motivation and time are the only two things that are required in order to complete an accurate financial plan.
5. Record keeping is an important part of completing an accurate financial plan because it provides an objective measure of where your money is going. It also helps you in planning, budgeting, and operating your financial plan.
6. There are several costs associated with setting a goal. Three of these cost are time, effort, and money.
7. According to Elder M. Russell Ballard, one of the dangers of not setting goals is to look back and realize that you only reached a small part of your potential.
8. One of the most important goals that every individual must learn for him or herself is learning what Heavenly Father would have you do or be.