Tailor your objectives to your own personal needs, not some generic model. For example, are you just starting out and seeking aggressive growth to maximize your assets? Are you retired with a sizable nest egg and looking to live off what you’ve earned? Generally speaking, investment objectives are broken down into growth, income, preservation of assets and speculation, but the reality is that most people draw from a combination of these. Since you can’t reach your goal without knowing what it is, chart out exactly what you want to get out of your investments. The first step in creating an investment plan is to define your objectives. Other Options: 13 Ways To Invest That Don’t Involve the Stock Market Define Your Investment Objectives Here are the key steps in creating a solid investment plan that can help keep you on track to reach your goals. Just like you wouldn’t take a journey without a road map - or at least Google Maps or Wyze - you shouldn’t take an investment journey without planning where you want to end up. First and foremost among those is the importance of having an investment plan. But the underlying principles behind successful long-term investing remain the same.

Investing has much more of a “Wild West” flavor these days, what with $0 commissions, online message boards and so-called “meme stocks” posting four-digit percentage gains over a short period of time.

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