Some of the most popular search terms on Google are about money and how to get it, often in a short amount of time. At some point in most of our lives we need or want more of it. But if financial freedom is our goal, just how do we make this work for us? How do we motivate ourselves to have the money that we want?

Most coaches and self-help books will teach you that goals need to be specific, measurable, realistic and time-based. This seems easy when it comes to money; we just state exactly how much we want (for example, a yearly or monthly income), how we're going to achieve it and by when we want to have it.

But just how powerful is the goal of a specific income? Is the achievement of money a goal in itself, or is there a more powerful goal we could use to pull ourselves forwards to financial freedom?

A large number of people searching on Google use the term, "I want money". There's nothing wrong with that, but when people start saying "All I want is money", I get a little dubious.

I don't know about you, but the idea of acquiring large amounts of pieces of coloured paper, or black figures on a bank statement does not really inspire me. Not as an ultimate goal.

What we tend to forget is that money itself is not the true motivator. When we say we want money, we are really saying that we want the things that money can buy. What those things are is a matter of personal choice. For some it might be material things such as a new car, a big country house or a yacht. For others it might be the ability to send their kids to university, or take four holidays a year, and for some it might just having a sense of security or freedom, or being able to contribute to charity. Or it might be a mixture of all of these.

These things are far more motivating to us than just having the tool to acquire them. After all, when a builder builds a house, does he only set his mind on acquiring trowels and hammers and all the other tools that are needed, or does he visualise the building that those tools will build? The answer to that is a no-brainer, yet many of us seem to do this when it comes to money.

Money is, in fact, no more than a tool. The builder needs his tools in order to build his house, but acquiring them is just a step in the process. Furthermore, if he only thought of how he was going to acquire the tools, I doubt he would ever be motivated to build a beautiful house.

In order to create the inspiration and motivation that will give us the key to getting the tools (i.e. money), we need to make our goal the thing that those tools will build for us.

Think about the joy and sense of achievement you will feel when you turn the key in the door of your new home, or when you see the delight on your children's faces when you take them to Disneyland, or the sense of freedom when you have a lifestyle where you no longer have to worry about meeting the monthly bills.

These are the goals that will get you out of bed every morning and get you taking the steps to make the money that will bring them to you.

You will, of course, need to be aware of how much money you will need in order to create these goals, but your money goal is now part of your action plan: a stepping stone on the way to your ultimate goal. When you visualise your goal, you will be visualising something real and personal: your house, your family's happiness, your own daily lifestyle in detail, in colour and with all the feelings that go with it.

It is far easier to visualise your goal when it is personal, than it is to visualise an income level. Your goal is now far more meaningful to you, and will set you on course for achieving financial freedom.

Instead of merely chasing money, you are now on a path to the life of your dreams.