Why setting a goal today can help you buy a home in the future.

The first step for first-time buyers.

Before opening an account, or trying to cut back on sushi, there’s one reeaaaallly important step in the home buying process — setting your goal. That’s why it comes first in the Nude app.

“I want to own a home one day” is your dream. Your goal is a lot more specific than that. It’s more like “I want to save a £20,000 deposit in the next 5 years so I can buy my first home”.

In words loosely inspired by our man Neil Armstrong, setting a goal is one small step in the home buying journey, one giant leap for people who want to buy a home. Here’s why 👇

You’re on your way

At this stage you’re at square one. And despite the bad rep it gets, square one is a whole lot better than square zero.

The most important thing is that you’ve started.

And by setting a goal, you’ve started in the best way possible. Over 380 tests have shown that goal-setting has a significant impact on your behaviour. So, by taking this one step, you’re likely to want to take the next one (and the one after that, and the one after that…)

You realise it’s possible

If you feel, or have ever felt, like buying a home is so impossible that there’s no point in even trying, setting a goal can put things into perspective.

You might find that actually, that huge deposit goal, when broken down month-by-month, is totally possible.

Setting a goal makes it real

Hands up if you’ve daydreamed about what your kitchen would look like (✋). Or whether you’d be able to fit a hot tub with an adjoining margarita machine in your future garden (🙌 ). Chances are, you’ve thought a lot about your first home.

When you set your goal in the Nude app, ‘owning a home’ no longer exists solely in your thoughts: It’s now alive and kicking in the real world. And that can set you up for success.

In a recent study, Dr. Gail Matthews — a Psychology Professor at Dominican University of California — found that people who write down their goals regularly are 42% more likely to succeed than those who don’t. And when you set (and refine) your goal in the Nude app, you go through the same process of writing it down.

You focus on what you can control

There are some things that you (and we) unfortunately can’t control — house prices, strict mortgage applications, and that special way newspapers write about these things so you feel totally discouraged.

Thankfully, there’s one thing you can control — you. When you set your goal and focus on what you can do to achieve it, all the background noise fades away.

You take it day-by-day

The sooner you set your goal, the sooner you can start working towards it.

You stay motivated

“One of the most motivating things we can experience is evidence of our progress.” says James Clear, Author of Atomic Habits.

Motivation happens when you get a spike of dopamine (aka: the happy hormone). These spikes appear when your brain gets positive reinforcement from completing a task, or seeing progress.

By setting your goal today, you have a starting point. And with a starting point, you can measure your progress, celebrate your milestones and stay motivated all the way.