Most people start their careers with stars in their eyes and myriad goals in their mind. These goals span a spectrum of needs and time horizons and could include something as immediate as buying an iPhone to something as long-term as buying a home for your parents. Unfortunately, not all of us achieve all of our goals. As you grow older in life you will ruminate over why you did not achieve so and so goal. However, instead of learning from your own mistakes, you can learn from those already made by others.

The question on every mind is, “is it difficult to achieve your financial goals?” And the answer to that is, “Of course not.” It only requires proper financial planning from the first day of your job. It is important to adopt a process for financial planning rather than make financial decisions based on your friends’ or relative’s advice. Financial planning has different stages starts from needs identification to the review of your investments.

Before making any financial decision, it is always good to have some goals on your mind with the corpus requirement and timeframe for that particular goal. Once you are done with your goals and needs, you should seek the help of a professional financial planner who will provide you with advice on how to park your money regularly in different assets to achieve your goals on the basis of your risk profile. But here comes a big challenge for youngsters. Choosing to invest rather than spend. Most youngsters struggle with trying to strike a balance between their lifestyle expenses and savings. This can be simply addressed by committing a certain amount to a monthly SIP. It need not be a large amount in the beginning. Just enough to get you going. Over time, as your income grows and you become more disciplined, you can increase this amount. Systematic Investment Plans (SIP) are a great option for youngsters to start their financial planning as they provide a variety of investment options with flexible amounts.

Another thing to remember is to avoid the “debt trap”. The new personal loan schemes from banks will definitely try to lure you. However, be wise and choose to fund your current consumption with your income rather than with a loan. Also, recognising the uncertainties around us, you should understand that personal insurance planning is as important as investment planning.

Once you have started the whole financial planning process, it is important to periodically review your investments, loans and insurances. If your financial situation has changed or the investment performance is not as desired, then you should make commensurate changes to your portfolio. Technology has now made the financial planning process easy, reliable and fast. So you really have no excuse.

It is very important to start financial planning as early as possible. Delaying your planning for a year or two may impact your future wealth generation. Also, understand that financial planning does not mean that you need to compromise on your fun or delay your plan to go with your friends on a holiday. What it actually means is that, if done right, you can save your money for the future and go on a holiday with your friends. So, it is very important to get some knowledge and awareness on financial planning in order to achieve your goals in this uncertain world.