Every financial article I see this time of year tells me the things I need to do to have a successful year. This includes saving more, maxing out the company retirement plan, doing a will and a host of other things that most of us end up not doing anyway. Focusing on these areas is really only dealing with the symptoms of a financial problem, not solving the problem itself.

Let’s focus on the process you have used to make yourself successful at work and transform that into your personal life.

More likely than not, over the past 2 months, you had to focus on your business plan for 2011, communicate this to your superiors and work out a schedule of how you are going to accomplish this over the next 12 months. This is how we are evaluated and often our compensation is highly tied into the goals that we set and if we accomplish them. At every business review, this paper will come out and be the benchmark for the conversation.

Our business lives are extremely important and hitting our business objectives generally helps fund our personal objectives, which may include retirement, taking care of our families, college for our kids and many other things. So why are so many successful business executives in total dysfunction in their personal financial lives? The answer is simple. They do not have the system in place that they have at work to be successful.

Here are a few thoughts for 2011 to make you personally successful in exactly the same way you do it in the business world.

 

1. Be accountable — Your boss or your board sits with you and says this is what you told me you would do and points to your list for the year. Who is sitting down with you and keeping you accountable on your personal life? This can be a spouse, a friend or your financial planner, but you need to have someone who says, “This is what you told me you would do and here is where you are.” 

    

2. Be systematic — we meet with our top clients on a quarterly basis. At these meetings we also pull out “the sheet” that has all their personal objectives for the year. By doing this quarterly, even if you have one quarter that for whatever reason you did not accomplish what you were looking to do, you still have another 9 months to fix it. Waiting until next January means that another year is now gone. “Inspect what you Expect,” as one of my old bosses use to say to me. 

    

3. Be realistic — often people come to me with goals that are simply not realistic based upon cash-flow or expenses. The key to a good plan is to develop reasonable goals you can start with and build over time. If you are not saving, just start with something and you can always increase it. If you spend too much, take a look at your expenses so you can realistically cut things out. Taking on too much generally results in not hitting your goals, getting frustrated and then quitting. 

    

4. Automate — the reason why most people have money in a 401(k) or 403(b) is simple … it is done automatically. If they had to write out a check every week to their investment company there would always be a reason why they can’t do it. Why not do the same with the rest of the investments that we have. With banking technology today, it is extremely easy to have money taken from your bank account and automatically sent to your investment company. Set it up so every investment is done automatically. 

    

5. Create a team — you cannot do it alone. There are more than 80,000 pages of federal tax code, the estate tax laws seems to change annually, investments are way more complex, and even mortgages that use to be very simple have hundreds of variations. A good plan has an excellent team that consists of a CPA, financial planner (CFP), insurance professionals, banker and attorneys. You need a team leader who is familiar with all the various functions to coordinate your vision. Generally I recommend that person be a CFP due to their broad training. 

People make this way more complicated than it needs to be. If you can be successful in business you can use the same skill set to be successful personally as well. Use January as an opportunity to work on your “Personal Business Plan” to ensure your family has a great 2011!

Jerry Lynch is president of JFL Consulting and has more than 23 years in insurance and financial planning. He has been a regular guest on CNBC, WABC and does regular articles for the Star Ledger. He can be reached at jerry.lynch@jflconsultinginc.com.