Three years ago, I made it my goal to create £104,573.63 in cash for myself. I had the number in mind, but I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to achieve it. I’d set myself a target of one year, even though I was lacking a plan. All I knew was, if I set my mind to it and keep the goal constantly in sight, I will eventually achieve my objective.

In April this year, I finally achieved that goal. In some senses, it’s fair to say I failed (as it took three times longer than I’d anticipated), however, in the spirit of enjoying the journey, I have immensely enjoyed the last three years which were spent focusing on things that were important to me as well as reaching my financial objective. Now, I’ve set myself a new goal — specifically, 10x my previous one — and I’m planning to hit this goal in half the time it took before.

So, given I started this goal in May of 2021, let’s firstly make a promise to write an update to this article in November 2022. With all that said and done, let’s move on to the plan.

Lessons learned

No plan would be complete without firstly learning from what I did in the past that was successful and what was not. So here are a few things I have learned which I will be putting into practice for my next goal:

Making the goal visible — as this was purely a monetary objective, I had nothing other than my bank accounts to measure progress. To make the ‘target’ visible in my everyday life, I did two things:

I printed the number in huge font on A4 pieces of paper (1 per digit) and stuck it on my kitchen noticeboard. This was my rudimentary vision board.

I put the value on a cover table to my MS Excel spreadsheet, which I use to track my incomings and outgoings — this was linked with a formula which tells me the % progress towards my goal at any time. This time around, I’m doing the same, but I’m also making this Medium post as a public commitment, as well as posting my target in other places to increase my accountability.

Better planning — being honest, my planning last time around was between abysmal to non-existent. When I set my initial goal, I had few ideas as to how to achieve this, other than recognising my full-time job would not cut it — I had a mortgage and no other sources of income, so even with extreme saving, this would have been impossible in the timescale. My plans were as vague as simply believing that I would achieve this and that opportunities would present themselves for me to write a book, startup a new income stream, or some other thing that would allow me to reach financial freedom. Talk about living The Secret. Again, this time, I’m making a solid plan. And I’m making it public.

Integration— I paid little attention to integrating my financial goal within my life. As before with my lack of planning, I didn’t really consider my work or my other assets and aspects of my life as focal points to allow me to accelerate progress towards this goal.

I saved money, but without working out how much I needed to, I considered other forms of income, without planning how it would fit with my lifestyle or other demands on my time. In essence, it wasn’t a part of my life, and instead something extra, a nice to have. This all bred a lack of focus and an inability to chart the individual actions in my life against the goal.

This time, I’ve created a story and narrative to my plan which allows it to flow and integrate with the other aspect of my life I wish to continue and improve.

It’s good to be S.M.A.R.T

Setting a SMART target is pretty helpful in this instance. I saw the above quote on LinkedIn this morning. I’ve already written my goal, set a target for next year, and I’m ready to plan.

1. Specific So let’s tackle the specific element next. There’s a subtle but important difference in my new goal — I’ve adjusted this to generating wealth rather than cash.

Why is this important? Firstly, it would be unlikely and unreasonable to generate such a large amount of money in cash, unless one were willing to embark on some unscrupulous briefcase-full-of-cash type dealings. Which I am not.

Secondly, the wealth generated will come from different sources, and most likely not always from cash-generating sources. As my plan below illustrates, the majority of this relies on the appreciation of assets — specifically, my business and my investments. Therefore, at the point in time in which I measure progress against this goal, I will likely be measuring the value of my assets rather than physical cash in the bank.

Thirdly, once I eventually reach my target, to simply liquidate everything and hold it as cash in the bank would negate any future appreciation. I would have to withdraw my investments, sell my business, and pause any continued accumulation of wealth dead in its tracks. Which is rather counterproductive.

Lastly, why such a specific number? Why £1,045,736.30? Honestly — no reason at all. It was randomly generated from my thoughts. I simply 10x’d this number for my next target.

2. Measurable Of course, the next element is for me to measure my progress. I already have my spreadsheet which contains my bank accounts, investments and cash in the business.

However, it’s important to measure actions as well as progress towards my ultimate goal. I’m using Notion to set Daily, Short Term and Long Term goals. This way I can set out the tangible actions I need to complete, but also keep the bigger picture in mind.

I also have a physical diary which I update every week with tasks for my business and personal affairs. I use bullet journal techniques to keep up to date with these tasks.

3. Actionable/Achievable The below income streams will form my main wealth-generating activities over the next 18 months. Whilst I could have created a list of 20+ possible income streams, these are, in order of importance, the ones that I will take advantage of to reach my goal.

Consulting: Starting a consulting business in the middle of a pandemic would probably be regarded as risky, however, since October 2020 my business partner and I have grown a £250k+ business. In order to reach our goal, we will need to double our number of clients and deliver over 600–700 days of consultancy projects over the next 18 months. This means additional recruiting and marketing, as well as constantly improving our products to meet market demand.

Investments: My investment portfolio is entirely in cryptocurrency. Given the recent crash, this is an ideal I’m looking to achieve 10x on my investments in the next 18 months. I expect, maintaining a balanced portfolio and taking advantage of additional income-generating activities such as staking and yield farming, will contribute to around 50% of my goal.

Online blogging & training: Not forgetting Medium as an income stream, I’ll continue to post relevant articles and am planning to create my own training course. As part of my mainstream consulting business, I create plenty of complex analytical models and spreadsheets and am planning to make the most of my skills by launching an MS Excel training course and a course focused on my public sector consulting work by the end of the summer.

Ebooks: In addition to the above, Ebooks can be created and marketed on a number of platforms in as little as a few weeks. I have a portfolio of ideas for both fiction and non-fiction books, so spending a few hours each day putting these ideas down on paper will allow me to create a saleable ebook by the end of this year. It will also contribute to my creativity!

Proper planning to achieve the above is key. I will need to set daily and weekly actions to progress the above, as well as keeping on top of our consulting projects. Thankfully, my cryptocurrency investments will largely look after themselves and only need checking every so often, and once the training course and ebooks are complete, these will generate self-sustaining income with some well-placed marketing.

4. Relevant/Realistic Keeping the above plans relevant means making sure I’m committed to them all. I’m really not a fan of the side-hustle, and I would never consider any projects I’m involved in as such — they all have some linked goal, some focal point that allows them to be integrated with my life and my passions. And here they are: I’m passionate about consulting. I’ve been working with the public sector for over a decade, and have a business that fits with my lifestyle whilst also making a real difference to public sector organisations in the UK.

I’m passionate about technology. Since investing in cryptocurrency, I’ve spent countless hours watching videos and reading up on blockchain, and I truly believe this technology will not only be with us for decades, but it will slowly become more and more integrated into our lives. This is not just a financial mechanism, it will change the nature of how we conduct business and how we value assets all over the world.

I love being creative. Keeping up with my blog as a medium of accountability for my goals, as well as writing an ebook and a training course will allow me to flex my creative muscles and enhance my ability to consult my clients as well as continue to think analytically about my investments.

Keeping my actionable plans in line with what I’m enthusiastic about allows them to remain realistic — I should always be able to achieve my goals if they fit with my personality and my personal beliefs. In addition, careful research and planning as well as taking into account what I’ve been able to achieve in the past will allow a huge goal to seem very realistic.

5. Timely 18 months to make £1,045,736.30. Taking into account I’m around 10% of the way there, and accounting for expenses over the next 18 months, means I have £950,000 to go. This makes a target of £53,000 per month. This means I definitely have work to do!

Wrapping up

I’m a big believer that the right opportunities present themselves once you set your mind to them. Publishing this commitment is the first step towards that. It will keep me accountable. If I don’t keep up with my plan, I’ll have to update this blog and explain why I’ve not achieved my goal. Or I’ll delete it and never speak of it again.

Keep following me to see how I’m getting on. It will keep me focused.

(c) Tom Walsh Media 2021. First published on Medium. Follow me here for more insights