Your goals are of incredible value. They’re a part of your dreams and the things you wish to accomplish. When you know where you want to go in life, you start to identify specific actions that you need to take to get there. Great goals are the steps that will take you where you want to go.
The problem is that these goals are initially fragile. Imagine a set of stairs with nothing to support it on the backside. What happens when you take a few steps? Everything starts to fall, and you’re right back where you started.The same thing happens all too often in real estate when agents set goals and feel motivated through the first few steps, but the goal ends up failing due to lack of motivation and accountability.
Let’s take a look at how to fail proof your goals by creating a structure for them that will support you from the first step to the last.
Set the right mentality
The first step to set yourself up for success is to set the right mentality. Know what you want to do, the timeline for doing it, and, most importantly, WHY you want to achieve the specific goal. For example:
- I want to sell $10M in volume
- I’ll sell 833k each month in 2018
- My “WHY” is to create the life I want for my family and for myself. One specific outcome I want for this year is to take them all to Europe.
The why is the most important part because it’s the real motivator. You’ll stay motivated throughout the entire process if you focus on why rather than what (more about this here).
Now, you need to incorporate the achievers mindset. Tom Ferry nails this in his recent blog. It’s all about changing from the DO > HAVE > BE mindset to BE > DO > HAVE. It makes perfect sense. Some agents think “If I do the right things, I’ll have reached my goal of selling $10m in volume, and then I’ll be a top producer”, when in reality, top producers started with the mindset of “This year, I am a top producer. I will do everything a top producer would do, and then I’ll have achieved my goals.” Get it?
If you lock in this mindset, you’re already halfway there.
Burn the ships
Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes first landed on the shores of what we know was Mexico with the task of conquering the entire Aztec empire. He had 600 men. The task must have seemed impossible. So what was the first thing he did? He burned the ships. With failure no longer an option, he and his crew went on to be massively successful. Ethics aside, the entire country still speaks Spanish to this day.
Our human instinct is survival. The brain is programmed to avoid suffering, so we naturally create escape routes in almost everything we do. A simple, everyday example of this is how we set an alarm to wake up in the morning. It’s much easier to set the alarm right next to your bed, because you know that if you wake up feeling exhausted, you can just roll over and hit the snooze button.
A “burn the ships” mentality, on the other hand, sets the alarm as loud as it can go on the other side of the room. This leaves no option but to get out of bed. In real estate, this translates to making a hard commitment to a task. For example, if you are determined to start making 50 new contacts to potential leads per day, but are constantly distracted by your cell phone, burning the ships could mean leaving your cell outside your office for the three hours while you contact on your office phone. Don’t make failure or retreat an option!
Don’t go solo. This is a huge part of burning the ships. Get an accountability coach, mentor, or friend and talk to them about your goals. If you’re the only one that knows about them, it will be much easier to forget them, skip work days, or give up when things get hard. The people around you are interested in your success, and if you’re also interested in theirs, you’ll form a nice team. No one ever achieved success by themselves!
Prove your results
Finally, you need a tool to prove your results each step of the way. You’ll feel much more motivated with a visual, tangible record of your success. This is where Sisu comes in. Our agents have seen 100% increases just from tracking and analyzing their results as they do daily tracking in Sisu and always know where their business is at.
^ A look at how agents can track progress in Sisu
Our software allows you to track your results as you go, with the click of a button. Each time you make a contact, close a deal, set an appointment, or complete any important function, you can track it in Sisu. All of your results are formed into visual dashboards so that you can see your progress each step of the way. If you own a team, brokerage, or coaching organization, you can see these for your entire organization.
^Sisu Leaderboards and Dashboards give team leaders and broker owners insight into their entire business
Not only will Sisu help you remember your goals and hold you accountable each step of the way, but it will motivate you as you close in on each objective.
We’d love to show you how it all works!
