With the new year approaching, everyone starts thinking about where they are in relation to the goals they set last year.
At the start of the year, most people are inspired. They set their minds on new achievements and start working vigorously toward them.
A lot of the time, I feel that people have the ambition but lack strategy.
For various reasons, they usually stray off course, lose sight of where they were going or get distracted by things that aren’t aligned with their goal.
Consistency can be boring. However, consistency is the key. What happens next is they get discouraged because they are looking at the end result, instead of focusing on what they can control day-in and day-out. This is a negative feedback loop.
There is a saying I always think about: “People overestimate where they can get in a year and greatly underestimate where they can get in 10 years.”
Ambition is easy. Commitment is hard. To quote Warren Buffett when he was asked by Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos why everyone doesn’t copy his way of investing because it’s “so simple” he responded with: “Nobody wants to get rich slow.”
Below is an outline of eight steps I feel that anyone can apply in their journey to achieve anything.
- Have a vision
- Feel like you are already there
- Set the goal
- Reverse engineer
- Map the course
- Break into increments
- Consistency
- Course correct
1. Visualize it
You need to see where you want to be, before you head out. Another way to think about it: If you’re planning a trip to the beach, can you see yourself there? How does it look? Do you have your feet in the sand watching the waves roles in drinking a cocktail? Are you playing with your children or grandchildren?
You have passion behind making this happen because often you’ve already envisioned what it’s going to look like. You’ve day dreamed about it.
This is crucial but overlooked when setting goals at times.
We go about our lives doing what we think we’re supposed to do, but we don’t give ourselves permission to dream and plan for what we really want.
2. Feel it
This is, what I believe, the most overlooked step. It goes along with visualizing, but it is an extra step.
You must be able to feel, what it would feel like if you did have it. It must make you feel good thinking about being there, or else why would you want to do it?
A true vision, I believe, has feeling behind it. Feel the feelings of achieving where you want to go. How does your goal feel?
Get as specific as possible. Don’t get distracted by anything you have heard from anyone else. If you can envision it, you can achieve it, if you plan, execute and keep yourself accountable.
3. Set the goal
Declare it. Do you want to make $20,000 a month? Reach a certain GCI for the year? Do you want to reach a certain sales volume? Do you want to grow your team or brokerage by 10 agents?
It needs to be easily declared in a sentence or two, otherwise you have nothing measurable.
4. Reverse engineer
I find it easer to start at the goal and work backward. This is much easier to be able to navigate than to figure out where to go from where you are at, from what I’ve found.
Most people know the natural progression and steps to get there. I just feel it’s easier if you are working from the goal, going backward.
If you want to be the top brokerage in your marketplace, who is No. 1? How do you measure it? What are its numbers? How many agents do I need to do X number of deals?
If you start working backward from the end goal. It’s much easier to see next steps.
5. Map the course
To get to any destination, you need to know where you’re going, step-by-step. Sometimes this is second nature, like driving home.
When you are setting out on a new course, like going somewhere you have never been, you need to map your course.
If you have reverse engineered from the end goal, then what did you find?
What are the next steps you need to take? What is the next thing you must work toward?
6. Break it into increments
Depending on the length of the goal, break it down to mini steps that you believe will get you there. Do this down to the day in steps that you can take everyday. It won’t seem so daunting once it’s broken down like this.
For instance, if you want to grow your brokerage by 12 agents in the next year, that is one additional agent per month on average.
How many meetings you do you think you need to get one agent? How long will it approximately take to get them over? Is it four meetings to land one agent? That’s one meeting a week. How many agents do you need to talk to a day to land a meeting? Is it three? Then it’s three agents you must talk to in your marketplace.
Do you need them to be at a certain sales volume already? What can you offer them? Do their goals align with your end goals as well?
This is just an example, but it shows how easy your daily actions can be if broken down into incremental daily goals.
7. Consistency
This the the key. No matter what you are doing, if you are taking steps daily to move you in the direction you need to go, it’s hard to go wrong. Hit whatever tasks you need to do every single day. Period.
8. Course correct
Most people fail because they think they need to know the right steps. They think they need to know for certain that they’re doing the right thing before taking action.
Remember this: Perfection is paralysis.
Wouldn’t you agree that doing steps 1-7 allowed you to prepare 99 percent better than someone just winging it?
If you have done all of that, you’ve set yourself a pretty good routine.
However, if you start measuring your results precisely, you might find you need to meet with five agents to get one to your company. That’s O.K.
You learned, and you will course correct. The more you review, the better, but I would say once a week should be enough.
I believe following this you can be on your way to achieving any goal you want.
Now, the only thing left to do is figuring out what you really want.
Kyle Klaus is an agent with the Prestige Property Group. He specializes in the Hoboken, Jersey City, and Weehawken market. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
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