PERSONAL FINANCE SWOT ANALYSIS: PART 6

Planning For Your Future

Step 1 to 4 of the Personal Finance SWOT Analysis is an assessment of your current financial situation. The 5th step of your Personal Finance SWOT Analysis, focusses on plotting the way forward. It’s time to focus on what needs to be done to achieve your financial goals.

Action Items

Based on Step 1 to 4, compile a list of tasks that you need to do, to achieve your financial goals. As a guideline, answer the following questions:

• How will you take advantage of your strengths and opportunities?
• Can an opportunity be converted into a strength?
• Can any weaknesses be converted into strengths? 
• Can any threats be converted into opportunities?
• Can your strengths help manage your weaknesses and threats?
• Can the opportunities you have identified help manage your weaknesses and threats?

Prioritising your tasks

Once you have completed your list of tasks you may find yourself with a very long to do list. Chances are, not everything on your list is urgent so it is important that you (1) prioritise your tasks; and (2) assign realistic timeframes for each task.

You can also organise your tasks by deciding:

• what is important and needs to be done immediately
• what is important and needs you to schedule time to do it
• what can you delegate to someone else to do
• what is not that important but can be revisited in future

Your overall plan

The golden rule for conducting a Personal Finance SWOT analysis is to take your time. If you find yourself a little overwhelmed, take a step back, remind yourself of your strengths and the opportunities you have identified. Then continue with the planning process.

You might also find that you need to revisit your financial goals, make a few adjustments and ideally, you should discuss your goals and overall plan with your Financial Advisor.

Once you have completed your plan, make sure that you have a clear idea of what you need to focus on, what needs your attention, or what needs to be done to improve your current financial situation and achieve your financial goals.