Goal setting is a perennial topic – exciting to many but worthy of an eye-roll from others. Unfortunately, setting goals doesn’t always translate into moving the needle for your business. The trick is to not only set goals but to execute the tactics and strategies to move towards them as well. So, how do you set powerful goals plus create the systems to support their execution?
We’ve asked ourselves that question too!
There are countless resources available to guide us in setting goals. Many books, seminars, blog posts, videos and retreats focus on this topic. While many of the same concepts are found, there is enough disparity among them to cause confusion or complexity, leading many to skip this valuable exercise entirely.
Here we try to narrow it all down to those concepts we have found most helpful.
Setting Powerful Goals Begins with Asking Better Questions
When you ask better questions, you get better answers. So, when you’re looking ahead at next year and setting goals for your business or personal life, it’s important to ask yourself questions that truly define what you want so you can set goals accordingly. If you haven’t been successful in setting big, yet realistic goals in the past, maybe you weren’t asking yourself the right questions.
When setting annual goals, ask yourself the following questions.
#1 – What has worked well for you in the past year?
#2 – What hasn’t worked well in the past year? What did you not accomplish?
#3 – What are some things you need to do differently?
#4 – What are my goals and desired outcomes for the upcoming year?
#5 – Why are my goals important to me?
#6 – What is the vision for my business and life beyond this year?
By asking these questions and as Stephen Covey recommends, “starting with the end in mind”, you’re able to reverse engineer what you want to accomplish and break it into manageable goals. Let’s deep dive into how you can crush your goals.
Celebrate Your Progress
Make a habit of celebrating your wins, whether they be in real estate or your personal life. Small or big, every win deserves at least a happy dance! To make this tangible, write down what progress you’ve made and where your actions have moved the needle for you.
It’s been proven that humans feel a sense of satisfaction when they feel that they are making progress. So, since progress equals happiness, take note of any little progress made, and celebrate the things you’ve accomplished periodically, on the way toward your big goal.
Reviewing and celebrating your accomplishments will give you the motivation to keep moving forward.
Examine The Stories You’re Believing
In the areas where you didn’t achieve what you intended, look at what stories you are telling yourself in terms of why? If the stories you’re telling yourself aren’t supporting your goals you’re likely stealing the very rocket fuel you need to feel empowered for success.
If any of these stories sound familiar – it’s just too hard, there’s too much competition, I’m not smart enough, there was a pandemic – you need to adjust what you’re allowing yourself to believe.
If you’re blaming your lack of success on any of these excuses, it’s time to change the narrative for yourself. Here’s the truth behind every false narrative you tell yourself, you have a fear of success.
When you have fear of success, you’ll always find ways to sabotage your progress so that you can stay in your comfort zone. I hate to break it to you, but real estate empires aren’t built in comfort zones. There’s always a story underneath the story, we have to analyze the deep layers to write a new one.
Expand Your Paradigm
Expanding your paradigm is another way of saying breaking out of your comfort zone. Whenever you try to do something outside of your comfort zone it’s just that, uncomfortable. The goal is to understand that to grow, you have to stretch. You must stretch yourself as widely as possible so that you can step into a better version of yourself.
One great way to expand your paradigm is to surround yourself with like-minded people. Join a mastermind, a success-focused Facebook group, or create your own circle of success focused individuals – whatever you need to do to surround yourself with similarly driven high achievers!
Another way is to go back and remember a time in the past when you successfully expanded your paradigm. Drawing from past experiences will allow you to find a parallel to your real estate business.
Perhaps you thought you’d never graduate from high school and then you did. Maybe you thought you wouldn’t get into college, and it happened. Were you fearful you weren’t cut out for parenthood and now you have children running around the house?
Can you think of a time in your life where you had a goal and even though you didn’t think achieving it was possible, you kept going until it came to fruition? Your real estate goals work the same way.
The 5 Reasons Why Most People Fail to Scale
Here are five key reasons why people fail to take their real estate business to the next level.
1. Limiting beliefs
2. Lack of a strategic plan
3. Lack of systems for support
4. Poor time management
5. Lack of execution
The 7 Simple Steps of Goal Setting
Using the RPM system or the Rapid Planning Method, there are seven simple, but important steps to take when setting powerful goals.
#1 – Result
This is the outcome you hope to accomplish by setting the goal. Here’s a pro tip, clarity is power here. The more clear your desired outcome is, the more power you have to ensure it happens.
#2 – Purpose
Determine your why. What’s the purpose of why you want to achieve this result or outcome? Look at who the outcome will impact and what emotion is attached to it.
#3 – Massive Action Plan
Creating your action plan is where you capture all the different things you could be doing to achieve your result. Do a mind dump of all the tasks required to reach your goal. Make a list to organize all the moving parts.
#4 – Prioritization
Determine which tasks should be completed first. What logical order makes the most sense for what you’re wanting to accomplish?
#5 – Time Stamping
Put a deadline on it. Add it to your calendar, because what gets scheduled is what gets done.
#6 – Leverage
Leverage is asking yourself what help you need to achieve your goal. The help you need might be a person or persons like the team at Specialty Investment Group, or maybe it’s a type of technology. This is where you focus on honoring your strengths and hiring out your weaknesses.
#7 – Execution and Course Correction
For the final step, go out there and take massive action daily. Measure your progress as you move toward your targets and then course-correct as needed.
The 4 S’s That Will Change Your Life
These four S-words are crucial in keeping yourself on track and monitoring your progress.
#1 – State
Frequently evaluate your state of mind or focus toward your goals.
#2 – Story
Check your story or the narrative you’re telling yourself.
#3 – Strategy
Ensure you’re staying committed to your strategy or RPM.
#4 – Standards
Review your standards or the level at which you’re operating. You should be committed to being realistically challenged on a daily basis.
Thinking Big and Setting Goals to Get There
Setting powerful goals for your real estate investments sets you up for success. With big, realistic goals and a strategic plan, you can design the life of your dreams.
According to Tony Robbins, most people overestimate what they can do in a year, but they underestimate what they can do in a decade.
It’s interesting that people overestimate what they can do in a short amount of time, but underestimate what can be accomplished in a longer period. Just like with investing money, your accomplishments compound upon one another and propel you in a non-linear, upward trajectory. So, celebrate your achievements and go out there and conquer this next year and the next and beyond! What you’re dreaming of can be yours, and it starts today.
