Whew. We did it. We just got through one of the toughest years humanity has collectively experienced in a number of decades. For that, we can congratulate ourselves, our friends and our family. It’s been a tough ride, but it looks like things will return to normality with time.
If ever there as a time for reflection, this is it. This is our time to look back on 2020, the year that was, and reflect on what we’ve learned and how we’ve grown. It’s in times of adversity that we figure out our strengths, so a year like this gives us great insight into who we are as people.
I think many of us have realised we’re much more capable than we thought we were. You can handle whatever life throws at you. We probably also feel closer to our family and friends and immediate support units. Maybe you even figured out you actually do love your job! Don’t be scared of taking some time to be grateful for what you’ve learned about yourself.
Once you’re done looking back and being grateful, take a moment to look ahead to 2021. What do you want to achieve this year? What are some of the goals you want to achieve? Have a think and start articulating them to yourself.
Emotion-Driven Goals
Goals that truly resonate with purpose and achievability are ones that are tied to emotion. When you think about a goal that means a lot to you, you can feel the emotion running through you. This emotion is your motivator, your fuel. It’s almost a guarantor of success, whatever aspect of your life the goal resides in… health, wealth, relationships, work, anything.
We’ve all heard about making our goals SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-Bound.) This is a well-established tool that’s really helpful in planning how to achieve your goals. When you use it in conjunction with an emotion-driven purpose, it’s a very powerful combination indeed.
Here are some hints as to how to infuse your goals with emotion:
Make them bigger them yourself. Take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Don’t just make your goal about making yourself a tonne of money. Use the reasons you need the money as your motivator. For example, if you say “I want to save $20,000 over the year,” you’re probably less likely to achieve it than if you say “I want to save $20,000 over the next year so I can put a deposit on the house extension and my elderly parents can move in with us.”
Be compassionate towards others. If you plan your goals with other people in mind, you will try harder to achieve them because you don’t want to let them down. Even if they’re unaware of your goals, you’ll still feel like you’re letting them down if you don’t achieve them. For example, if you set a milestone in your business as your goal, don’t make it all about the milestone. Make the milestone a conduit for freeing up your time so you can take the family on a nice holiday every few months.
Use pride as a motivator. People often talk about pride in a negative sense. They say “Pride comes before a fall”. But the truth is, you can use pride to help you achieve your goals. It’s a very powerful emotion, because if you take pride in what you do you’re going to focus on success. It’s like if you take pride in your appearance, you’re always going to look good.
Inspire others. You achieving your goals can have a knock-on effect of inspiration. Before you know it, those around you are inspired to strive towards their own goals. Success becomes contagious, and the success you inspired will further motivate you to kick even more goals.
Practice Gratitude. We mentioned gratitude earlier. Appreciating what you have can really put things into focus and strengthen your resolve to reach your goals. Take a few moments each day to think about the good things in your life and feel thankful for them.
Here at the Henry Wong Team® at Harcourts Beyond, we are extremely grateful for you, our followers, readers and clients. The goals we set, we set them with you in mind, to try and improve on our service to you. We hope this article helps you with your own goal-setting. The more we can all kick goals next year, the happier and more content we’re all going to be.
Please get in touch if we can help you with your real estate ambitions for next year. We’d love to talk about how we can put our ‘Your Next Chapter’ framework to work for you.
