Your Life Gets Bigger When Your Goals Do

Many people spend years building wealth, growing a business, and chasing financial freedom without ever stopping to ask a simple question: What is it all for?

In this episode, Mai and Lee explore the connection between wealth, purpose, and goal setting. Drawing on conversations with business owners, investors, and families, Mai explains why financial success is difficult to achieve, let alone measure, if you don't have clarity around what you actually want from life.

The discussion focuses on setting meaningful goals, creating a vision for the future, and understanding how financial decisions should support the life you want to live. Whether your goal is early retirement, more freedom, more family time, or building a business you love, Mai shares a practical framework to help turn ideas into action.

In this episode, Mai talks about:

• Why building wealth without a clear purpose often leads to frustration
• The importance of understanding what financial freedom means to you
• Why most people struggle to define their goals
• How lack of clarity can impact financial planning and wealth creation
• A simple framework for setting meaningful personal and financial goals
• Why dreaming big is an important first step in the planning process
• The difference between wishes, preferences, and measurable goals
• How attaching emotion and purpose to your goals increases commitment
• Why time, freedom, and choice are often more valuable than money itself
• The role accountants, financial planners, and mortgage brokers play in helping achieve long-term goals
• How small financial decisions today can create greater choices in the future

This episode is a reminder that financial success isn't about accumulating wealth for the sake of it. It's about creating a life that aligns with your values, gives you choices, and allows you to spend your time in ways that matter most to you.

If you'd like help building a financial strategy that supports your personal goals, reach out to our team at www.myaccountingadvantage.com.au. You can also submit questions or topic ideas via the Ask Mai link at the top of the show notes.

Learn more about My Accounting Advantage

Disclaimer

The advice contained in this presentation is general in nature only and should not be acted on without first seeking professional advice.

Your personal circumstances have not been taken into account, and you should consider the appropriateness of the advice to your individual needs.

Transcript

Welcome And The New Direction

Speaker 0:00

Hello, and welcome back to the podcast, My Accounting Advantage. Joining us today is our wonderful accountant, Mai Harris. Mai, welcome back. Thank you, Lee. Nice to be back. Mai, we've had such a good response to the podcast, and we've sort of changed direction in the last few weeks. Very soulful, very life-meaning, not about the PL. And today, we're just gonna crescendo into the grand final of moments here as we discuss our title, The Size of Your Goal Determines the Quality of Your Life.

Wealth Building Starts With Why

Speaker 0:36

Take us into this.

Speaker 1 0:37

Yes, this is quite different from, you know, our previous episodes, but it's so relevant because for the past six weeks, I've been working so closely with business owners and you know investors and mum and dad who are currently looking at or just in the process of building wealth and you know, planning for um financial freedom in the next 10, 20 years, etc. And um a lot of the time I'm I've been asked, you know, if I should, whether or not they should just buy this property, or whether or not they should just borrow money and then um invest in certain financial products, etc. And I went, okay, that's that's great that you want to build wealth, but where are we, what are you gonna do with that wealth? Why are we investing in, you know, for example, this commercial property or this residential property in Byron Bay, for example? So it's all relevant. And I come back to, you know, your goals. And I often ask, not often, I actually ask all the time. Every time I have a planning session with my clients, what are your goals? Almost nine out of ten, they don't even know what their goals are. So it makes it very hard to um, you know, plan for them and provide, you know, the um tax saving journey for for that client if they don't even know what they really want and why they're building their wealth for.

Speaker 2:27

People get lost in the wash and we everyone gets busy and life, and then something happens, and then suddenly another 10 years has gone by, and you forget why you're actually doing

The Stairwell Story And Drifting

Speaker 2:37

something. I remember a very interesting story from the UK. And it was at Buckingham Palace, yeah, and there was a guard on this stairwell going up to a room. And every day he turns up and he guards a stairwell, and he guards the the stairwell. Then someone asked one day, they said, What's in the stairwell? He said, I don't know. I've just been told to guard the stairwell. Okay. So I come here to my post every day and I guard the stairwell. But what's up there? There was no one up there. This was going back like 50 years when somebody was up there and they're no longer there. So we're guarding something, but we don't know what's there. This is related to this topic today of, and people think I don't have goals. That's what fancy rich people do and stuff like that. A goal is just a decision of where you would like to be. You may have a goal that you don't have to work anymore and choose to travel. You may have a goal that you want to live six months in one location and six months in another location. Yeah. That could be a goal. But what people do is they get lost in the fog of what that is. So for example, let's say you had a goal to live six months here, six months somewhere else, and then people think, well, we'd have to buy a property up there to do that. You could rent and do it now.

Speaker 1 3:51

Yep.

Speaker 3:53

Which means the fog's gone. But if you if your goal was to live in two locations because a family or work, whatever it is, you don't have to buy it to do it and wait 20 years to do it. You could make a decision to make that goal a reality today. Take us into your thoughts and from your perspective, because you get to meet so many people in a financial way, and the last thing you speak about is the PL. It's trying to get to the truth of what would make you happy.

Speaker 1 4:22

That's what life is. You know, you you chase the money, you chase the dream so that you can be happy. But what does happiness look like to you? You need to understand um, you know, what it is that you're chasing and where would you like to be, you know, in the next 10, 15 years. And if you don't really know that, you know, it's like shooting in the dark. Unless you have a vision of where you want to be in the future, it makes it really hard to aim. For me as an advisor, it makes it really hard for me to put the, you know, tax saving journey together for you and or wealth creation journey together for you. If I don't know that, okay, you want to retire, for example, at the age of 50. Or, okay, no, you you're going to stop work at the age of 60, for example. And um, what what do you want your life to look like? So you need to really quantify what that is in order for me to help you to meet that goals.

Speaker 5:34

Um listen to you speak about foul the foundation layer before 2x or 10x. Take us into

A Simple Framework For Goals

Speaker 5:41

that.

Speaker 1 5:41

Well, that's the thing about you know, people don't understand the um the basics of, you know, setting goals. So number one, to even get to, you know, the 2x, you need to set simple goals first. A lot of people don't even know how. And you don't they don't if you don't know how to start, you it will be 2x or 10x. You're not even gonna understand that. So let's go through, you know, um the how, the framework that you can use to set goals. So number one, you know, you define what you really want. And you without having, you know, limitations. So no filter whatsoever. So you are allowed to dream at this point. Dream as big as you can because you'll be surprised where you're going to end up. So put it all down, spend a little bit of time, like you know, 15 minutes to an hour, write it all out. That's where you start. You know, don't have any limitation. There is no judgment there. And you're doing it alone anyway, so you shouldn't um feel the pressure that you're being judged at that point. And, you know, want as much as you like. And then step two is to pick one. Only one goal that you want to achieve. And number three is to make it specific and also come up with a deadline that you're going to achieve that goal. So, you know, the the first step was to put down all um, you know, the ultimate goals, what you wanted, but then you need to break it down at how you're gonna achieve it. And then, you know, pick the one goal that you're gonna focus on, and and then set yourself a time frame that you're going to achieve. Because it's like anything. If you don't set a deadline, it becomes a preference and then it doesn't get done. For example, you know, if you want to grow your business real fast, you can set your goals um for the next 12 months that you're going to sign 10, 15 new clients by the end of the year, the 31st of December. That's very precise. And then you go, okay, now I need to work hard on acquiring 10 clients by when. So that's realistically what you need to do. And then number four, you attach your feeling to it. What I mean by that is understanding what changes if you achieve that goal. It has a meaning behind that. So you own it. And to me, if you put feeling, attaching that feeling to that goal, it becomes real. And you'll put your um time and effort into achieving

Ordering Your Life And Protecting Time

Speaker 1 8:51

it.

Speaker 8:51

Mai, as we keep discussing this topic, our listener would be thinking, when when was the last time I had a goal? And the word goal sometimes shuts people down because they they don't see themselves as a striving, goal-setting person. I just live my life each day and so forth. Okay, that's all good. But if I change the word goal to what would you like to order in your life, and people say, What do you mean? Well, I'll give you an example. My beautiful wife, Robyn, has a goal that next year she wants the beginning and the end of the week to be non-work times because she wants to spend time with grandchildren. That's so clear that every weekend's gonna be a long weekend because Rob can. So I love that about her, and I can support that now. Yet if I don't know that, I I can't assist or help either. Yeah. So when I go, oh, we've got to do this on Friday, no, we don't. And I can now plan for that. Yeah. Everyone in life has the right to order what they would like to be happy. Yeah. That's completely different for everyone. But if you're the everyone, you are the you, do you know what you want? Don't do it for other people. And people do this all the time. One of the biggest strengths someone can have is they're a giver. Yeah. Their biggest weakness is people take advantage of them. And everybody else gets what they want, and then you find yourself choking on the dust of your own regret that you didn't protect time or protect time for yourself. Yeah. And you don't want to be seen as selfish. And this is where goals and emotion business we need money to do anything. So that's why you get good and efficient at something. And if you get really good at what you do, the money finds you. That's true. Because you're just good at what you do. And I think all this interconnects because no one thing happens in isolation. And I work with so many different types of people, yet I can go into a company and know who's really good at what they do. They're what you refer to as safe hands. Yeah. And they always get picked for the greatest jobs or they get escalated up to promotions and so forth because they are good. But the person's got to want it as well. Not everybody wants the same as someone else. And I've seen it many times, Mai, that I've got a business owner who's running a great business. They're really, really excited. And now they want to sell shares in the business to the staff, and no one wanted them. And he goes, I can't believe it. Uh I offered them all shares and no one took it up. They don't want what you want. But for the individual listening to this, what do you want out of this time that you have?

Speaker 1 11:32

Yeah. And I think it it's so important to understand that early, early on in

Clarity, Choice, And Financial Freedom

Speaker 1 11:39

the piece. Why is that is because you need to, you know, map out your journey and map out what your business would look like in the future and what life is it going to provide to you? Will it be enough? So if it's not enough, well, maybe, you know, you can have the business and then you need to, you know, use your profits from the business to invest. Once you're doing that together with building up the business, investing in your investment portfolio, everything goes up together to meet your end goal. So it's very clear. It's all about clarity in your life. And that will also determine how big, you know, your life will be and how big your business will need to be to accommodate for that life. Having clarity is everything. And then, you know, the professionals in your life, which is your accountant, your mortgage broker, your financial planners, can, you know, work with you to, you know, come up with the strategies and, you know, the mapping out that financial journey to help you achieve that. That's our role. So for us, number one thing for you to be clear on is what you actually want in your life.

Speaker 13:06

And if you're struggling with that, uh a great goal is to, and this is where this all connects, you know, if we're putting $100 away or $50 a week into super and super's building up, and then years pass by and now we can afford to invest in a property. Well, what if you invested in a plan that gave you a financial return that you don't have to work at all? And if you do choose to work, it was by choice. And I think one of the greatest successful moments in life is when you wake up in the morning and you get to do what you want to do because you control and have the choice to do what you want to do, versus I have to go there, I have to do this because you didn't have that moment to think, wow, everything I should work towards. And I'm not talking about retirement, I'm talking about choice. You know, many people choose to do things for work because they find it fun. Uh, it's not a hassle at all, but they do have that choice.

Speaker 1 14:02

And that's the beauty about, you know, having your goal set. Um, you're giving yourself permission to include, you know, the fun part in into your life. That my goal is to wake up every day and go to work. It doesn't feel like work. So that is a brilliant goal. So how do I do that in um order to feel that way? You know, so you make plans to make your um job fun, do the things that light you up each day, and and then, you know, you're building yourself a life that you never need to retire from. So that is amazing to me. You know, that is more that is one of my personal goals. And um, I feel like a lot of people don't want to set goals because they're fearful that they're actually never going to achieve it. But that's really it's like putting your head in the sand and then not doing anything. So if you know don't you don't make any changes, nothing changes. So you need to step up and um understand what you you really want in life and dream big. Give yourself permission to to dream big and to go to go all out. Because otherwise you'll just be looking back in the next 10 and 15 years and go, oh, I really wish I did that. And you know what? I had that conversation with clients time and time again.

Dream Big And Closing Thoughts

Speaker 15:42

Mai, another wonderful episode. I look forward to our next week when we go deep into the business world of making these things happen so people can set and feel and achieve their goals. Mai, just before we leave, what is your final words for this week?

Speaker 1 15:58

My final word for this week is you know, you are allowed to dream big for yourself. And then there are people out there like us, you know, at the professional, like your financial planner, the accountants, the mortgage broker that will help you fulfill that financial goals. So don't be afraid to just set it. Then you'll accomplish it in some ways.

Speaker 16:26

Mai Harris, thank you for joining us.

Speaker 1 16:28

Thank you.