With a new year upon us, the excitement of achieving bigger and better things fills many of us with excitement. The start often acts as the starting point for designing a new set of goals or updating past ones for the coming year.
What have you decided to achieve in 2021 to make it your best year ever?
There are many different strategies to improve the likelihood of achieving your goals this coming year. Here are FIVE that will help you check off your goals as “accomplished” when you are looking back at 2021.
1. Set short-term and long-term goals.
Start with thinking about where you would like to be, what you would like to achieve, what you would like to have, what type of person you would like to be in 10 years from now. It’s important to have a long-term vision for your life. Think of it as your guiding star. Long-term goals are just that, long-term. They typically can’t be achieved within the year, but rather require consecutive years of accomplishments to reach.
With your long-term goals written down, start outlining what you will have to accomplish this year in order to bring you a few steps closer to your long-term vision.
2. Importance of goals.
The degree to which your goals will motivate you is highly dependent on how important they are to you. For each goal you set, think deeply about why it is important for you to achieve that goal. What is the driving force behind it? WHY is it so important that you achieve it?
I encourage you to think beyond financial motivations. The more connected your goal is to a person, relationship or emotion – the more motivating it will be for you as you navigate 2021.
3. Create SMART goals.
SMART is just an acronym that helps ensure your goals are written in terms that will improve its probability of achievement. For each goal you dream up, ensure that it passes the SMART goal filter:
S – Specific: Be as specific as possible when describing your goal. The more detail the better. The more specific you are, the more ingrained it will be in your mind and your actions.
M – Measurable: How do you know you will have achieved it? How do you know you are making progress towards your goals? Determine what are the best metrics you can use to determine your progress throughout the year. If your goal is to purchase an apartment building, the actual purchase is an obvious metric, but think about the steps you will need to take to get to that purchase. How many buildings will you need to evaluate? How many offers should you be making? How much capital do you need to have available? All of these require their own measures to ensure you are gravitating towards the goal of a purchase an apartment building.
A – Attainable: This is a tricky one because setting attainable goals may encourage you to set goals that are too small. Be careful not to set goals so that you can check all the boxes on December 31. Your goals should be attainable at some level, but be large enough that they make you a little nervous. This nervousness you may be feeling is the feeling of pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone – and that is very good! For example, if your goal is to purchase 10 apartment buildings, it may be unrealistic / unattainable if you plan on doing that by next week. On the other hand, one apartment building within the next 2-3 months, may be a stretch if is your first one and you are just getting started, but very attainable if you align all your energy to get it done.
R – Relevant: Your goals are YOUR goals. They need to matter to you. Period. Your goals need to reflect what YOU want to achieve. The more personal they are, the probability of success skyrockets.
T – Time: All goals need to have a target achievement date. Without a date assigned to it, goals will just float around, unlikely to be achieved. We need urgency to ignite action. Attaching aggressive timelines to your goals will help move them forward.
4. Set daily habits that align with your goals.
It’s great to set short-term and long-term goals, but they need to manifest themselves in your daily habits if you want to see them to fruition. Ask yourself this: What must I do daily, weekly, monthly in order to achieve my goal? What must I do everyday?
Breaking your goals down into daily or weekly activities makes your aggressive goals seem more manageable.
5. Let people know what you are trying to achieve.
Sharing your goals with those closest to you (i.e. friends, family, business associates) does two things to propel you forward:
a) Brings you a higher level of accountability. You are more likely to press forward when you have made an ‘open’ commitment and others are watching. This can also be achieved by hiring a coach to help you maintain the level of accountability you need.
b) There may be people in your network that can help you achieve your goals. If they don’t know what you are trying to achieve, they can’t help. Looking to grow your apartment building portfolio? Put it out there, you may have someone in your network that can help you get there.
Wishing you all the success in 2021.
About the author:
Mark Baltazar, Co-Founder of Peak Multifamily Investments
With 18 years of experience in business strategy and corporate consulting on the global stage, Mark brings a wealth of business management and operational expertise to real estate investing. Winner of the Real Estate Investment Network’s Top Player Award in 2017, Mark continues to build strong momentum in growing his real estate portfolio.
His strong analytical background enables him to bring a strategic rigour to portfolio expansion and the assessment of investment opportunities.
With five years of real estate investing experience across various strategies, Mark oversees Peak’s capital raising, client acquisition, partner relations, educational content development while ensuring the company delivers on its promise of helping others build generational wealth through apartment building investing.
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