Welcome to the first edition of our newsletter for 2018…
We hope you had a very Merry Christmas, a fantastic celebration for the New Year and we hope 2018 brings you much happiness and success.
Our Festive Season has been very busy with numerous contracts secured between Christmas and today so we’re hoping that this is a strong indication of the strength of the market over the next few months…more about this in the coming weeks.
At this time of the year, many people set themselves a New Year’s Resolution (If you have, hopefully you’re still on track with it.)
In case you weren’t aware, here’s the Top 10 most common New Year’s Resolutions that people have set themselves as they come into 2018…
Top 10 New Year Resolutions
1.Lose weight – 48%
2.Exercise more – 41%
3.Save more money – 32%
4.Improve diet – 31%
5.Something else – 22%
6.Pursue a career ambition – 15%
7.Spend more time with family – 14%
8.Take up a new hobby – 12%
9.Decorate at home – 11%
10.Cut down on alcohol – 9%
So how long does the average person keep their Resolutions?
A 2007 study from University of Bristol (in the U.K) found that 88 per cent of people who make New Year’s resolutions fail – which means that only one in ten of us will be successful.
Research by private health company Bupa was slightly more positive, and found that just 63 per cent of people failed in 2015.
Of those polled by Bupa, one in five of us (20%) lasted less than a week, 66% lasted less than one month and apparently, 80% of people didn’t make it to the end of March before going back to their old ways.
Rather than a flippant New Year’s Resolution, perhaps you’re a little more focused and have set yourself some serious goals.
Whether it be sport, exercise related, business or just personal, this is also the time of the year when many people set themselves a list of what they truly want to achieve in 2018.
You may have heard of the term ‘S.M.A.R.T’ which is an abbreviation of some simple rules that are proven to assist you in goal setting.
A number of years ago, when I was running a large real estate office, I re-wrote the term to include more ideas that I believe are essential in successful goal setting.
This term is ‘S.M.A.R.T. G.O.A.L.S’.
I’ll briefly explain…
- Specific – Goals should be straightforward and emphasize what you want to happen. Specifics help us to focus our efforts and clearly define what we are going to do. Ensure the goals you set are very specific, clear and easy. Instead of setting a goal to “lose weight” or “be healthier”, set a specific goal to lose 2cm off your waistline or to walk 5 km at an aerobically challenging pace.
- Measurable – Choose a goal with measurable progress, so you can see the change occur. How will you see when you reach your goal? Be specific! “I want to read 3 personal growth books before my birthday” shows the specific target to be measure. “I want to be a good reader” is not as measurable or quantifiable
- Achievable – Goals you set which are too far out of your reach, you probably won’t commit to doing. Although you may start with the best of intentions, the knowledge that it’s too much for you means your subconscious will keep reminding you of this fact and will stop you from even giving it your best.
- Realistic – Devise a plan or a way of getting there which makes the goal realistic. The goal needs to be realistic for you and where you are at the moment. A goal of never again eating sweets, cakes, potato chips and chocolate may not be realistic for someone who really enjoys these foods. For instance, it may be more realistic to set a goal of eating a piece of fruit each day instead of one sweet item. You can then choose to work towards reducing the amount of sweet products gradually as and when this feels realistic for you.
- Time Orientated – Set a timeframe for the goal: example – “By the end of the week”, “in three months”, or “by June 30”. Putting an end point on your goal gives you a clear target to work towards. If you don’t set a time, the commitment is too vague. It tends not to happen because you feel you can start at any time. Without a time limit, there’s no urgency to start taking action now.
- Glaringly End Focused – Too many times, any worthwhile goal feels like a lot of hard work. Without keeping your eye on what you’re trying to achieve or what the fulfillment of this specific goal will give you, the pain of the journey will get in the way and you’ll start to drift away from what you want.
- Often Reviewed – This is a big one for me. When I managed large numbers of real estate sales people, I often observed great intentions and plans at the beginning on the year but as early as February, I’d ask them what their goals were and they couldn’t tell me or worse, couldn’t even find where they’d written them down. Goals need to be reviewed at least twice per day if you’re serious about achieving them.
- Always Celebrated – There’s no worse way to de-motivate you from setting more goals than not celebrating the achievement of any one of your goals that you’ve achieved – no matter how big or small they may be. You don’t have to buy yourself a new Rolex watch every time you lose 5kgs but you can reward yourself with something simple like a new book, a nice dinner out or if you have children, an afternoon at the park. In fact, any goal that includes others makes you more accountable to your goals and your commitment and is even more powerful.
- Limited Number – I have seen people set as many as 100 goals for the year split into many varied categories and this is the surest path to failure! Here’s what I’ve found that works for me over the years – too many goals and your brain just can’t keep up. It’s better to set 3-4 goals in a specific area of your life and when you’ve developed the right habits and achieved some success with these, start slowly implementing goals in other areas of your life as well.
- Staged Adequately – The best way to achieve any large goal is to set ‘check-points’ along the way – in other words, a series of smaller goals. If you want to lose 10kg by June 30, your first sub-goal could be to lose 1 kg by January 31. Here’s my tip, always make the first sub-goal the easiest. If you achieve this goal, you’ll feel more confident about achieving the next sub-goal and momentum will take over as you progress. If you miss the first goal by a long way, you’ve set up your year to fail as the second goal might be way too far away given you still have a long way to go to hit the first sub-goal. If a real estate agent sets a goal to sell 50 homes in a year (which is about 4 per month), and only sells one home in January, they then tend to mentally ‘check out’ as catching up to sell 7 homes in February may appear to be an unattainable task – i.e. their subconscious mind won’t actually believe that they can achieve this second sub-goal and therefore, this agent won’t take the necessary steps forward to make it happen. All of a sudden, they start thinking about ‘next year’ and it may only be March. Whilst this may sound like an exaggeration, you’d be surprised how often it actually happens.
For me, the one point that stands out above all else is ‘O’ (Often reviewed). I’ll admit I fell into the trap of setting goals last year and at periods of time throughout the year when I was really busy, I was not renewing them anywhere near as often as I should.
We often get caught up in day to day living (or surviving in some instances), and it’s within these times that it is easy to lose focus on what we want to achieve.
Above all else, remember the old saying – “Beginning is half done” or “The hardest step is the first one”.
I hope this helps you – even in a small way.
As a real estate agent, I am very goal-orientated so this is a topic I’ve read a huge amount about, diligently researched and discovered many things that work and don’t work as I continually evolve and learn more on this subject.
As a team, we’ve clearly set our goals for the year and we’re really excited about some of the things we’re about to implement and how this will help our clients achieve their property goals so it’s going to be a huge year.
Welcome back…and until next week, Happy Goal Setting and Happy Achieving.