New Year’s is a good time to take stock of the past year and set some strong goals for the new year.

In this blog post, I explain how I both succeeded and failed with last year’s goals, and how I’m setting new and better ones for 2023.

If you want to know how I do it, you can read last week’s blog post here.

Let’s get cracking.

Last year I had two main goals:

●     One was to raise more than 2 million USD for my value investor fund Grünbaum Value Invest. 

●     The second was to throw myself into online dating and meet a boyfriend before that year was over. 

This Is How I Failed with My 2 Personal Goals

I achieved both goals, but I’m not satisfied with the result.

On the investment front, I managed to raise DKK 12.3 million (around 2 million USD) and I was grateful for every penny. But six months later, I still haven’t invested the capital, and I find that frustrating. 

Why not?

The whole administrative process of getting a license with the financial authorities and a bank and investment account took a lot longer than I anticipated. It took five months for the setup to be ready to invest. Fortunately, it’s ready now.  

In the private sphere, I managed to find a partner… But after five months I broke up with him, because I couldn’t see a future for us.

I made a classic mistake with my personal goal, and that was being too vague.

It’s somewhat like being a job seeker and saying “I want a job” – without defining the sector, the tasks or the salary range. 

If, as a well-educated and critical job seeker, you set a general goal of “getting a job,” then the universe will test you and offer you a cleaning job. 

In the same way that you must define your goals professionally, you must also be strategic and critical on the private front.

So what are my goals for 2023?

1. I Will Invest My Fund’s Capital

The main goal is to get the money invested: before the end of the year, the current funds must be invested in at least 5 wonderful companies.

The fund aims to achieve an average annual return of 2% above the MSCI World. Ideally, I would like to have a return of at least over 10% but preferably over 15%.

It can be difficult to predict how the market will behave this year, and I know I have to remain patient and flexible.

We can only do our part, which is to look for wonderful companies, run them through a checklist, do the calculations and double-check our work.

Whether the stock market goes up or down in a specific year is impossible to predict. 

I am highly motivated to make that return of at least 10%-15%. 

Why? 

First of all, I want my investors to do well. I also set up incentive structures to motivate myself: 

●      I have invested alongside the investors, so the return I make for them is also my own return. 

●      In Grünbaum Value Invest, I only get paid if I make a return of over 6%. This means I work for free if I make a return below 6%.

This investment will be the most important professional goal for me in 2023, and if I had to choose only one, I would stop here, but I also run a blog and an educational site, so I have two more professional goals. 

2. Build and Sell the Value Investor Course 

I have hired a small team to help me expand Money and Freedom. We are testing different content strategies and building a YouTube channel. 

We are filming and creating an amazing 8-week course that will launch in a few months. Are you ready to learn how to invest with the method I use? Then maybe this is for you. Stay tuned. Make sure you receive my e-mails (you get them if you sign up for my e-book or the checklist).

3. Build the Inner Circle

I have long wanted to build the next level for my 8-week Value Investing course. 

I’ve decided to launch the inner circle which has weekly live investment cases and teaching for a whole year, an annual event and a more advanced course on options.

With my professional goals in order, it was time to get more personal…

4. Find a Life Partner

When I had to write my private goal, I realized I still didn’t really understand what went wrong in 2022. 

I had to go back to the ex-boyfriend from 2022 and ask if we were completely sure that it was over.

It’s the same every time we meet: he says he misses me. For a moment, I think we might be able to make it work, but then we start talking… 

We’re still in love with each other… but we don’t have the same vision.

So once again, we met and talked it through and ended up in the same place. We love each other and miss each other. But we don’t want the same thing and can’t find a common platform to dance on.

I want a life partner. He shrinks at any future talk. What does he want? He doesn’t know. 

What does it really mean to be a life partner? I had to pin it out to understand why we didn’t work. 

I have attached seven pillars to the idea of a life partner:

1. Trust. We know we can trust each other, and we’re exclusive. We want to confide in each other about big and small things, because we trust each other and know that we want the best for each other.

2. Passion/Adventure/Fun. We are attracted to each other and have passion. We also have fun in other areas and enjoy life together: we go for dinner, go on trips, to concerts, to the theater and discover things together. We laugh a lot.

3. Common Life/Vision. We are building a life together: We live together (or plan to live together). We build a home full of trust, love, dinners, board games, dinner parties, and interesting discussions.

4. Intellectual. We are both interested in the world, in knowing more, reading books, watching documentaries, and we can talk about deeper topics such as how the world is connected. Our conversations are like a good book you never want to finish. 

5. Clear communication. We talk in a straightforward way to each other about our needs and expectations. We avoid nagging, complaining or guilt tripping. 

6. Reciprocity. We have an elegant dance of giving and receiving.

7. Support. My life partner understands my mission of spreading financial freedom and supports me in my work.

My ex and I had a lot, but not 3. He didn’t want us to build a life together. 

Instead of going on dates while I’m still in love with my ex, I have decided to shift my focus for the next three months. 

I set a temporary personal goal for the winter to make an effort to strengthen my social network in Portugal.

I have drawn a map of my network and have made a list of families with children that I want to invite to dinners and another list of those I want to have lunch with (without children).

Now What?

I’ve done the work with analyzing, selecting and articulating my most important goals.

Now comes the key: writing down a precise sentence I can read and visualize daily – and doing the daily work. 

Here comes an example:

“I, Beile Grünbaum, have achieved a return of at least 10% in Grünbaum Value Invest before 2025 by investing in a minimum of 5 wonderful companies. My plan is to invest as a value investor and use my checklist and calculations.”

Or: “I am happy and grateful now that I have invested the capital in Grünbaum Value Invest and I’m getting a good average annual return above 10%.”

Each morning and evening, I will read the sentence and visualize the result. Then I will write down three things I can do that same day or the next day. 

There’s another good trick I use. I look at the goal and ask myself:

What type of person is successful with this goal? What does such a person do? I write these qualities down and read/listen to them daily.

When it comes to investing, I’m building an inner, psychic Warren Buffett that I manifest. 

What are your goals for 2023? What qualities do you need to be successful in your goal? Do you have an inner type that you can put to work? To learn more about my style of investing, you can download my e-book Free Yourself here. 

Have you ever wondered how some people achieve the things they set out to do, while others don’t?

How about you? Do you achieve the goals you set for yourself?

What happened to your goals from last year?

Did you make it?

Most people set New Year’s resolutions once a year. Unfortunately, most resolutions fail.

Why?

Because New Year’s resolutions are in most cases unambitious, and not attached to a larger purpose. They are decided and forgotten again.

In this blog post, I explain to you my own five-step process for choosing how to set better goals  for 2023.

Step 1. Visualize Your Vision and Your Dream Life

Sit down in a quiet place and think about what your life would look like if everything was possible and you could achieve anything.

You are welcome to dream and fantasize in a childlike fashion.

What are you really dreaming about?

An important part of this step is to figure out what your overall purpose is.

What’s your contribution to the big picture? What’s really important to you? This takes awhile to figure out, and maybe you won’t get the answer to that today.

Now, Picture a day in your life… in detail.

Try to be as specific as possible.

Where do you live? How and when do you wake up? What’s the view from your bedroom window? What do you have for breakfast? And with whom do you have it? Do you exercise or meditate before breakfast?

How do you spend your day? Do you go to work or work from home? Who do you have lunch with?

Sometimes when we do this exercise, a sting of pain might appear if the vision is very different from the life you live today.

If something feels difficult in your life today, find out what it would take to make it better. If you’re not happy in your current job, ask yourself what you’d rather be doing. Dream out of the box.

If you are not happy where you liveask yourself, “where would I like  to live?”

I did that in 2020, while living in an inner city apartment in Copenhagen. I envisioned myself living in a house near the beach and the mountains, I saw kids running around barefooted on green grass. I saw myself doing yoga in the morning, in a place with a fantastic view of the mountains.

Honestly this seemed pretty impossible at the time. ntil I realized the vision was possible, if I thought out of the box which was called ‘my current country.’

Now I live in Portugal, and my life has completely transformed – nearly identical to the vision I had.

Step 2. Write a Long List of Different Goals

What does it take for you to live like this?

Write a list of things that you would like to have or achieve.

This is a brainstorm, so don’t judge, criticize or delete. Just write.

Again, you have to be specific.

Try to push yourself to write 100 wishes or goals to force your brain to be creative. It can be things you need to do, or material things you want to have in your possession.

Step 3. Select the Most Important Thing

Read the list and evaluate. Next to each item, rate on a scale of 1-10 how important it is to you. Then, pick the one that’s most important to you this year.

Remember that what you don’t pick isn’t disappearing or never happening. You’re simply prioritizing what is important first.

In any case, sometimes the other goals come naturally when you succeed with the big goal.

I work with two goals simultaneously: one professional and one personal.

Last year at this time I chose two goals:

My personal goal:  date and meet a boyfriend.

The professional goal:  raise money for my value investor fund.

In the next blog post, I will evaluate my goals for 2022 and set new goals for 2023. Stay tuned!

Step 4. Attach Your Chosen Goal to a Purpose

Your goal must be attached to something bigger than you.

It must be linked to a life purpose.

Why do you want to achieve that specific goal you picked? It should be about something larger than you.

My goal of creating a hedge fund is connected to my mission to help others become financially independent.

I also have another life purpose and that is to create more financial equality for women. As we all know, women are paid less for equal work, and fewer women invest compared to men.

I may not be able to fix equal wages across the world, but I know  I can inspire and teach more women to invest.

Why do fewer women than men invest? One factor may be that they have fewer role models in the field of investing.

There are close to no female hedge fund managers or famous value investors. I want to be a role model who can inspire more women to invest in an intelligent way. That is my life purpose. Which makes this fund more urgent.

Let’s get back to you.

Why do you want to invest?

Is it to become financially independent? To get more options in life? To avoid financial stress? To secure your family? To go on a world trip? To be able to live out your life purpose in another area?

Decide on the larger purpose tied to your 2023 goal. It will keep you going when you feel like quitting.

Step 5. Make Your Goal Specific and Write It Down

Now write down your goal in very specific terms.

I use Napoleon Hill’s formula:

“I, (insert name), have (insert what you want to achieve) by (insert date) by (insert what you want to do). My plan is to (insert your strategy).”

It could, for example, read as follows:

“I, Maria Johnson, have 300.000 invested in the stock market by 2024  by investing my savings and profit in stocks. My plan is to invest as a value investor.”

The late Bob Proctor used a different method where he gets the feeling directly into the phrase.

He said: “I am so happy and grateful now that (and mentions the goal).

In this case it would sound like this.

“I am so happy and grateful now that I have 300.000 invested in shares.”

Bob Proctor puts a lot of emphasis on phrasing the goal as if it has already happened.

Which method should you choose?

How about both?

I write my goal down using Napoleon Hill’s method, and I review it every morning and evening. I also mention it several times a day using Bob Proctor’s method.

I have a coffee cup that says “I am so happy and grateful now that…”. Whenever I drink tea or coffee I remind myself of my main goals with that sentence.

You could also write the sentence with lipstick or a child-friendly marker (can be easily washed off) on the mirror in the hallway or bathroom.

The point is, have fun with it!

Now What?

Of course, working on your goal shouldn’t stop the moment you set the goal.

That’s where the real work begins.

You have to read your goal every morning and evening. Envision yourself having already achieved it.

The real muscle of your goal activities is your subconscious. You want to play with the subconscious until it figures out ways to get there. It’s almost like you have to become obsessed with your goal. Fall in love with it.

Every night think of at least three tasks you could do the following day to get closer to your goal. Tip: rite it down, so you don’t forget it.

You must seek knowledge on the subject and cultivate your strategy. Read, listen, learn.

The mistake most people make with New Year’s resolutions is precisely that they set the goal and forget about it.

Goals need to be cultivated, watered and nurtured like little sprouting plants until they have become an integral part of your life. Then you can move on to the next goal

Don’t forget to download my e-book Free Yoursel, if if getting wealthier is part of your life purpose so you can achieve your dreams! You can download it right here.