Your Real Estate Goals Need A Plan Of Action
By JD Esajian on December 8, 2014
It is around the holidays that many people will start to begin preparing for the upcoming year. Often times, this means assessing last year’s performance while establishing goals for the upcoming year. Having goals and constantly reverting back to them can be the best thing you can do for your business. While this is an important step, the act of simply writing down your goals will not do you any good unless you make a plan to achieve them. It is only when you have a realistic action plan attached to your goals that you will start to see the results you are looking for.
The start of the New Year is often a time of reflection and when many businesses owners try to change things that may have been bothering them in their business. Instead of writing them down and vowing to change, a plan must be in place to help you get there. Anyone can say they want to close six deals a month and make a million dollars, but unless a road map for that success is laid out, they will only be empty goals. Achieving your goals starts with a plan, but that plan is only as good as the implementation that follows.
Anyone that has ever started a diet or tried to get back in shape knows that progress can often be very slow going. The biggest reason that many people give up is not because of the work or the sacrifice, but the lack of progress. We live in a world where we want everything instantly, even when this is not possible. When looking at your goals you should take baby steps along the way. This doesn’t mean you can’t go faster, but if you find yourself achieving smaller goals it will motivate you to move on to bigger ones. Losing a few pounds a week or seeing some progress will motivate you to continue with what you are doing. The same can be applied to any business you are in or any goal you have. Little steps will eventually lead to bigger ones that will help you achieve anything you want to do.
Your action plan starts with a commitment to work and a schedule for how you are going to do so. Some of the most successful people will write down how they want every day to go. This is not realistic all of the time, but if you have a schedule and are committed to following it, you will start to see the results. This means mapping out what you are going to do the following day before you go to bed the night before. You should be as detailed as possible with this plan. It is human nature to get distracted, especially in this digital age, but if you have a schedule it is easier to motivate yourself. If you know that every Monday you will meet with new realtors from 10-12, it will be easier to get out on the road and get new business. Whatever your schedule, you need to make the commitment to follow through for at least 90 days. If you give up before this time, you are not giving your goals a real chance of success.
You are a victim of whatever habits you have. Fortunately it is not impossible to break bad habits. This could mean wasting time throughout your day or not following up with new contacts. By changing these destructive habits into positive ones you begin to establish a new way of doing business. This new way to work will be the catalyst for your goals. Investors have many of the same resources and contacts in a given area. There is really not much that separates a successful one from one that is wondering why their business is not taking off. Small changes in habits and a commitment to make a schedule and follow it will help you achieve your goals faster than anything else you can do.
It is important to constantly remind yourself of what your goals really are. It can be easy at times to get blinded by short term success and quickly lose focus of the bigger picture. Anyone can have success over a short period of time but this can often be fool’s gold. If you really want to achieve your end goals you need to remember what got you to that point and stick with it regardless of whatever else is going on. Achieving goals is a process that must be followed and repeated all of the time. If you stop what you are doing once you get a couple of deals you will set yourself back when these close and leave your pipeline. Achieving success is great but you cannot stop what has been working once you have a taste of it.
Your goals and success will not happen overnight. Even with the most detailed plan and passion things will take a while. The most successful investors, and people in business, are the ones that will continue doing what they know is right long after everyone else has stopped. The start of the New Year can be a great time to evaluate your business and make changes you desire. If you have new goals it is as important to have an action plan and time frame for how and when you want to achieve them. Having goals is great but they won’t get done without a plan.