A debt repayment plan is one of the many tools available for a financially distressed individual to use in managing their debts. It bounds to fail if they do not have any idea, proper expense planning or a compelling goal setting to manage their debt repayment journey.

Gerard Egan (2013) mentions that commitment to goals can take different forms — compliance, buy-in and ownership. Compliance takes form of a person following certain points that they could register and felt it may help the situation. Whereas Buy-in would have more pushing factors and believes for the person to start somewhere and stay committed. The commitment level of compliance and buy-in is relatively difficult to maintain because the person may face new challenges and finds it difficult to balance the limited resources they have.

Ownership is the highest form of commitment among the three forms. The person would have identified the compelling goals they wish to achieve through the exploration stage of the counselling session. By taking ownership of their goal, the person would be able to start establishing achievable milestones for them to do progressive check-ins and tweak their behaviours and habits along the way. When the person makes the first step forward to their goal, they moved beyond the resistance to change. Such constructive change will subtly influence a habitual change in their mindset and developing self-awareness in dealing with problems through their journey to achieving the compelling goal they set.

So, how committed are you in your debt repayment plan and the desire level to achieve the compelling goal to be debt free?

It may take some time for someone to articulate the determination and commitment level, there are many other factors and essential life capabilities that could influence the desire to take the first step.

Procrastination or reluctance to get started is a common factor to put off problem managing actions. If you can build up your self-reliance by strengthening your self-efficacy (or confidence as it is commonly known) in dealing with success and failures, you would be able to adopt a positive psychological approach in managing your competence in accomplishing your challenges and milestones towards your debt free goal. In Figure 1, the “Successful Goal Setting & Goal Achievement Model” shows a simple thought process to get things started in your debt repayment planning or almost every other thing.