Successful investing requires a plan.

By developing and following an investment plan, you can ensure you're taking steps towards your retirement goals. A good way to start your plan is to consider where you are now and where you want to be.

1. Where are you now?

Your financial position
Where does your money go? Do you have surplus income to invest? Can you restructure your spending so that you do? What's your net wealth and how can you measure that?

In a perfect world, you can easily accumulate wealth so you can live the lifestyle you desire. However, unless you are lucky enough to win the lottery or inherit a fortune, you have to achieve your goals using the financial resources you have available – our income, assets, and our ability to borrow money and repay it.

So where does your income go? The first step of financial management is to know how you spend your money by preparing a budget – if you cannot measure your money, you cannot manage it.

Once you have had a look at how much money is coming in, and going out, it's important to consider what assets you own and what debts you have. This will help work out your net wealth – which is the difference between what you own (your assets) and what you owe (your liabilities).

The QSuper Net wealth planner will help you list your assets and liabilities and review your financial situation.

2. Where do you want to be?

Understanding your goals
What do you want from life? What are you investing for? When do you want to retire? How much do you need?

The reality is that you are not Cinderella – you don't have a fairy godmother to whisk you away to prosperity. You have to organise your own future and create your own fairytale.

This means setting down what you want and having a plan to get there. Many Australians never had a plan and so face retirement with a sense of foreboding. To reach financial security and your desired lifestyle in retirement, you will need to plan your financial future.

Setting goals

Here are some tips for setting goals:

• Write them down. The most powerful goals are those you can see. Include a timeframe to achieve each goal.
• Brainstorm what you want to achieve in life without evaluating if they are realistic.
• Involve your partner or spouse.
• Return to your list a few times, because once you have written some ideas down, new ones might pop up, or goals you have written earlier may become clearer.
• Review and prioritise your goals. You may not be able to achieve them all in the amount of time you would like.

Most goals require money and now you can start to think about how to accumulate the money you need to make your goals come alive.