Giving yourself ambitious (but reasonable) time limits for achieving your goals can be a great motivational tool. For example, let's say that you set a goal of being on your way to owning a house two years from today. In this case, you'd need to investigate the average home cost in the area you'd like to live in and start saving for the down payment on your new house (as a general rule, down payments are often required to be no less than 20% of the purchase price of the house).[