Many Americans fail to plan for retirement. Working toward retirement requires planning, dedication and time. Most people end up with no retirement because they fail to set goals. Goal setting is challenging for many, but we have a six step success strategy to setting up and accomplishing your goals.

We have developed a six-step financial goal-setting process.

1. Set your financial goal: In the previous steps, you worked to create your Total Expense Amount (Budgeted). We recommend you use this figure as your financial goal. This is the amount of passive income you need to achieve wealth.

2. Break down the financial goal into manageable milestones: Whether you need $10,000 or $500,000 to become financially free, you need to set milestones to help you manage your progress. We recommend that you use 20 percent of your goal as an appropriate milestone.

3. Create a specific, step-by-step plan to achieve each milestone: This plan should address not only the vehicle to achieve the goal (real estate investments), but also express your monetary and time contributions to your plan. Example: I will achieve Milestone 1 by investing in real estate and using my current net cash flow and two hours a day in pursuit of my investments.

4. Determine a reasonable time frame for each milestone: The rate at which investors are able to achieve their financial goals varies. Use a conservative estimate at this stage, but revise it after you have completed your first real estate investment project and updated your personal financial statement.

5. Plan how to safeguard your milestones: Unfortunately, we must safeguard our milestones against our own human nature. New investors have the tendency to spend their newly earned cash flow by increasing or adding new expenses to their ideal budget. Don't let yourself get caught in this trap. You can safeguard against this trap by opening a separate bank account for your investment funds. Keeping these funds separate from your personal funds will help prevent you from increasing your living expenses via new car payments, credit card balances or frivolous luxuries. Be disciplined and patient; your reward will be financial freedom.

6. Determine a re-evaluation schedule: Periodic progress assessments are central to your success. Use these re-evaluations to outline your progress, determine the necessary steps to keep you on track and provide you with the motivation to keep going. MYreiTEAM recommends you schedule these assessments at the same time every week.

Paul Pratt

Our team's diverse backgrounds and investing experiences include a high school teacher, a college drop-out, an MBA graduate, a waiter, a secretary, a real estate agent, a banker and a stay-at-home mom. Despite our diverse backgrounds, we shared a common, life-changing event; we all made the decision to truly change our lives. Although our starting points couldn't have been any more different, we each discovered that our journey toward financial freedom began with real estate.

Most real estate investing "gurus" offer a "one-size-fits-all" approach, providing generic ideas and uncertain results because their philosophies fail to consider individual experience and circumstances. Our personalized approach, the understanding that each of us has a very unique background and set of circumstances, is what has made MyreiTeam?s system so effective.

After years of learning "the hard way", we are now living our dreams. The high school teacher now has the ability to spend more time with his most important students, his own kids. The college drop-out is retired and enjoying exotic fishing and hunting trips. The waiter is now waited upon, vacationing and skiing in the world's greatest resort towns. The MBA grad and banker own their own real estate investing firm and the secretary now manages her own employees who are devoted to her real estate empire. The stay-at-home mom has moved her family into a luxurious 8,000-square-foot scenic mansion.

All of the wealth and success we have been enjoying has been better than we could have dreamed. But even more satisfying and phenomenal was the rate at which the Personalized Investor Matrix? was creating wealth for our friends and family who were using it to get started in real estate. Now we want to share this revolutionary approach with you. Our powerful, personalized investing system is now at your fingertips.

MYreiTEAM is exactly what it says, your team! We are here to provide you with all the help and support you need to succeed. If you have investment questions, need some support or motivation, or if you just made an exciting deal and just want to share your experience with somebody, post your question or experience on the My REI Community board. One of our team members will quickly respond to your question with expert advice. The point is we are committed to your investment success and are excited for the opportunities that lie before you. Welcome to MYreiTEAM!

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