Get Sorted: Feed forward for the new year

Rather than feedback on 2016, it's time to zoom in on those things we can do to make progress in 2017.

You've experienced feedback. It's painful. You know, that deafening screech you hear when you hold a microphone too close in front of its speaker - that endless loop of increasing noise that has us immediately covering our ears. Unless you're a kid playing with an electric guitar and an amp, a budding Hendrix fan looking for that signature sound (and I appear to be raising one), feedback is harsh.

There's that other type of feedback too - when we over-analyse how things went, like say in 2016 - which can be equally unpleasant. It can be a drag, an increasing loop of negativity over what went wrong and what could have been.

No point. It's time to feed forward.

How best to look back on the year that was?

"The gift that keeps on giving, that's 2016," we've been sarcastically saying around the office. For many, this year will have been challenging to say the least.

Moneywise, you may be happy with what you've accomplished, and you may have sorted some things and got ahead financially. But you may also want - you may also need - to grow even more for your whānau and your future.

Instead of feeding back on what was, it's time to feed forward.

In the spirit of the great Marshall Goldsmith, who's been successfully coaching high achievers for years with his "feedforward" techniques, let's leave the past behind - there's not much we can do to change what occurred, after all - and focus on how to improve what's to come.

First up is to pick one future behaviour we'd like to adopt. Last year for me was mostly around getting the right insurance cover and adjusting my KiwiSaver settings.

What will 2017 be about?

I haven't decided yet, but lately I've been focusing on what really moves the needle in terms of net worth. If that sounds good to you too, we might choose something like:

"We want to find faster ways to reach our goals."

"We want to increase the surplus in our everyday budgets."

"We want to use debt more to our advantage."

"We want to build more of a savings buffer."

"We want to dial up our results in KiwiSaver."

"We want to invest and compound more wealth."

"We want better cover for the risks we're running."

Once we've chosen a behaviour we'd like to take on (and again, the point is to improve net worth and really get ahead financially), we can ask others around us to feed forward.

What suggestions might they have for us? They might come from a financial adviser, or from someone close to us who has already accomplished these things. And what good ideas might we have for them?

This leaves us free to pick the best tips for 2017 and focus on what will work for our future.

That's not to shun the past or anything - we can certainly learn from experience. It's just that there's no sense in pulling apart 2016 and putting it under a microscope to examine what didn't work. If anything, we can look back to see how far we've come.

"We can change the future. We can't change the past," Goldsmith reminds us.

Forget the feedback, let's get feeding forward, people. All the best for 2017!

Get Sorted is written by Sorted's resident blogger, Tom Hartmann. Check out the guides and tools from Sorted – brought to you by the Commission for Financial Capability – at sorted.org.nz.