What are mid-term goals and why is it so important to define them? We all have short-term and long-term goals, but many of us neglect the crucial mid-term goals. We need to set mid-term goals because focusing on those long-term goals can be extremely difficult. It’s hard to stay motivated when the payoff is so far off. Here is how I define these different types of goals.
Short-term goals are things you can accomplish in less than one year. These are the type of goals I set every New Year. Short-term goals should be achievable, and measurable. You should make progress on them every month.
Long-term goals are things that take 10+ years to accomplish and we won’t see much progress from year to year. These are things like saving for retirement or being completely debt free. We don’t make quick progress on these goals and it’s easy to get discouraged. For example, it’s practically impossible to focus on saving for retirement when you’re 25. You have so much time left until retirement and you won’t see the result for decades. Also, long-term goals usually are moving targets. We don’t know how much money we need for retirement until we are older. That’s why we need mid-term goals to bridge the gap between short-term and long-term goals.
Mid-term goals are things that you can accomplish in 3 to 5 years. Everyone has these mid-term goals but most of us don’t keep track of them. That’s a mistake because goals are forgotten if we don’t pay attention to them. Here are some examples of mid-term goals at various stages of life.
- Graduate from college
- Pay off the auto loan
- Buy a house
- Have a baby
- Become a VP in your organization
- Make it in the music/acting/art scene
- Become a millionaire or accumulate whatever amount fits your current financial situation.
You should be able to make noticeable progress on these goals every few months. That makes them much easier to track than long-term goals. Also, your mid-term goals should align with your long-term goals. Every time you accomplish a mid-term goal, you should be one step closer to your long-term goals. It’s an occasion to celebrate.
*Originally written in 2016. Updated 2023.
Set Big Mid-term Goals
Personally, I like to set just one big mid-term goal so I can focus on it. When I started Retire by 40 in 2010, my big mid-term goal was to retire from working full-time in 5 years. The stars aligned and I was able to accomplish that earlier than I expected. It’s important to note that we had been saving and investing for a long time before I made that mid-term goal. We were almost there and just needed the final push to get over the finish line. If I just started saving for retirement in 2010, then it would have taken much longer to retire early.
Our next big mid-term goal is for Mrs. RB40 to retire by the end of 2022. Unfortunately, this didn’t work out. Mrs. RB40 took a sabbatical, but she went back to work. She still likes her job and it makes her feel good about herself. She pushed out her target retirement date to 2028.
Here are some other goals we have.
- Take a year off to travel. We wanted to take a year off to travel in 2021, but it didn’t work out. Mrs. RB40 was still working and the pandemic made travel much harder. We traveled for 3 months in 2022 and we had a lot of fun. Once Mrs. RB40 retires, we’ll take a year off to travel around SE Asia.
- Simplify our real estate holding. We made a lot of progress since I wrote this post in 2016. We sold our condo and moved into our duplex. Currently, we have one rental condo left. Once our tenant moves out, we’ll put it on the market. When Mrs. RB40 retires, we’ll sell our duplex and move. Being a landlord is a great way to build wealth, but I want to travel more.
- RB40Jr goes to UCSB. Our son is pretty smart, but he has a hard time regulating his emotion. Hopefully, he’ll be able to control himself more as he gets older. We’ll try our best to help him get into our alma mater. If he can’t get in, he can go to Portland State for a couple of years and then transfer. Actually, any good public university would be okay with me.
- Refocus blog. It’s hard to continue blogging about the same subject for many years. You get bored and run out of things to say. Somehow, I’m still at it after 13 years. But I probably need to refocus my effort in the next few years. Maybe I can write more about travel and make more YouTube video clips.
What do you think about my mid-term goal? These goals are very motivating for us and we are working hard to accomplish them.
We were exhausted after traveling for 3 months in 2022. We’ll need to slow the pace down and stay in one location longer. By 2029, we should be able to afford more luxurious apartments and flights. Travel can still be fun when you’re older. We just need to slow down a bit.
To wrap it up, I think mid-term goals are very important. They are big goals that can change your life. That’s why everyone should set some big mid-term goals and work hard on them.
Do you set mid-term goals? Can you share some of your mid-term goals with us?
Image by Adam Kubalica
Passive income is the key to early retirement. This year, Joe is investing in commercial real estate with CrowdStreet. They have many projects across the USA so check them out!
Joe also highly recommends Personal Capital for DIY investors. They have many useful tools that will help you reach financial independence.
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“ She pushed out her target retirement date to 2028.”
Howdy Joe, how did your wife come up with a 6 year later retirement date? Pension? By then, your son will be in college. Maybe that’s the goal, do you have a lot of free time once he’s out of the house?
Sam
Exactly! When he goes to college. They both refuse to move as long as he is in school so we’ll be in Portland until he goes to college. When he’s gone, we’ll go travel.
The brain wants immediate satisfaction otherwise it will boycott my long-term goals. That’s why I have to give it some “candies” along the way, NOT get suckered in.
Smaller (and achievable) goals are easier to achieve and more likely to get me to the BIG goal (financial peace in my case).
That’s where I break it down on weekly or monthly basis.
I am really impressed by your story and your domain name (retire by 40) is not only cool but also effective.
What I do to reach my goals is to set smaller goals and achiavements along the way. Just the way you do it.
There are indeed 3 types of goals. The mid term goals are an import part indeed. To be honest, I mainly have short term goals and long term goals, not enough explicitly in between.
Some mid term goals
Show europe to our kids before they go to high school.
Save enough in our travel fund to show the world the years after that
The approach you take with your mid term goals makes a lot of sense. They allow you to have some concrete action points and by doing so, you actual prepare the long term goals.
Thx to get my thinking started on this
Everyone focuses on the short term and the long term goals, but not the mid term goals. I think it’s great to make some mid term goals that are an extension of the short goals that possibly lead into the long term goals. I wish that I could take a year off to travel. That sounds like a great way to simply enjoy life.
I love planning. Mid term goals are much more achievable! To make it A lot less overwhelming, Build tiny goals every day (baby steps) used as a litmus test to see if it gets you closer to your longer term goals is much more motivating… Does that work for anyone else?
For me, tiny steps work with short term goals. It takes a little more time to see progress on the midterm goals.
I love goals. I have annual, mid term, and long term goals. For mid term goals, the best time frame is five year goals.
5 years is perfect for midterm goals. It’s just enough time to accomplish something significant.
Mid term goals:
Travel in an RV to see most of the US
Yoga practice twice a week
Pay off our auto
Teach my grandson Spanish
Start a book club
Meal plan to save on groceries
The RV trip sounds like a lot of fun. I would move the Yoga and meal plan to your short term goal list. Good luck!
In your mid-term goals list the only one I did was graduate from college, and for me that was an inherited goal. Where I work promotions are typically spaced years apart and it’s a few steps up to VP, so reaching VP in 3 to 5 years isn’t realistic. Also the first million took me more than 3-5 years to accumulate, and I think it would be rare to reach that level in your mid 20s.
Perhaps my lack of mid-term goals keeps me from retiring? I haven’t yet found any inspiring ideas, I’ve always left it up to my employer to keep me moving. Maybe I’m not a goal-setting kind of person? In retrospect climbing the learning curve on new technology is a 3-5 year process, and I’ve done it a few times, but I never consciously pursued it, I think it was a consequence of many short term assignments in the same general area that brought me there. Come to think of it most of my patent portfolio was written up after the fact when we eventually understood and resolved new problems that showed up unexpectedly– none of this work was planned in advance.
So I guess my advice to other ‘floaters through life’ would be you can still accomplish things without setting goals if you surround yourself with people who believe in you, and if you take advantage of your innate flexibility to pursue opportunities that the master-planners and control-freaks won’t touch.
It sounds like you’re doing very wellwith your approach. I think that’s okay. Everyone has to find their own path. I think setting goals give you a little more direction.
I love it! Traveling is one of my biggest upcoming goals. I’ll be semi-retiring next year, and would love to immerse myself in a foreign culture for a while. The spouse and I will be applying to Peace Corps and can’t wait to have an experience that won’t be focused on making money.
That’s great! Applying to the Peace Corps is one of our long term goals. It should be very challenging. Our timeline for this challenge is in our 50s so hopefully we’ll be healthy enough to do it then. Good luck!
Here are a couple of my mid-term goals: saving a one-year emergency fund, renovate my basement to rent on Airbnb, continue building my freelance business, and losing 20 pounds. I completely agree that mid-term goals are often overlooked.
Those are great goals. Good luck with them. You should be able to accomplish some of these in a year or two. Keep at it!
I’ve been concerned about my health and lack of a regular exercise routine. I eat too much red meat I’ve never seen a steak that I did not like and I’m about 48 lbs overweight. Since i still have a long way to go (hopefully) I’ve decided to challenge myself and do an Ironman in 4 years when I turn 65. I know it is a crazy goal but I think we all need to do some crazy things once in a while to keep things interesting. If I make the finish line what a way to celebrate my 65th and I will be getting fit at the same time. Not a bad deal!
Wow, the Ironman is a huge challenge. Keep working on it. You need to stay healthy for your family. Have you changed your diet and eating habit?
I’ve started changing my eating habits but it is a work in progress. Currently working on cutting down on the volume that I eat, a smaller portion of meat, more fruit and vegetables, drinking more water and serving food on smaller plates. It will be a challenge to get to the start line but i plan on taking it slow but look at the shape I will be in after I finish. Keep your fingers crossed for me!
I know it is really difficult to change eating habits. I have been trying to eat healthier and it’s just tough. I need the people around me to commit to it too. Good luck and keep at it.
Well I’ve never really thought about this. I set goals for the year that I see obvious monthly progress on, but I don’t have any clear mid term goals. We do want to buy a lake house by our 10 year anniversary which is coming up in 4.5 years, so that counts. But we really haven’t done much to work towards it. We should really get on that and make sure we’re seeing progress towards it every few months.
You should check on it every quarter. At least set up a down payment fund account. 🙂 Good luck!
Yes, a good blend of goals is key to a successful financial (and personal) life. You can really equate it to a company. The best run companies not only deliver results in the short term but also work to make sure that their long term future is set.
Yeap! I agree completely.
Without goals/dreams, it is hard to measure your progress in life. Having those goals on the paper is even better as it all of a sudden begins to be tangible.
I love your blog!
Dividend Freedom
Thank you for your compliment. Setting goals down on paper really helps. If you don’t write it down, your goals will keep changing. It’s hard to hit a moving target.
Hi Joe. I like the idea of you taking the blog on the road for awhile. Getting to see possible retirement locations and discussing the pros and cons would be really useful. Put down my vote for that. 😉
I think it will be a very good change of pace. I’d probably have to cut down on the frequency of posting, though.