It is known that people with the ability to focus for long period of time with a single mind on a task are often successful. Successful people and people of genius are known for this ability to focus completely. In the real estate business this is true as well, or is it. Most agents are able to multi task a whole bunch of things at once. They prospect while they transact and return phone calls while they set up a lunch meeting. It is somewhat crazy. Real estate has such broad and diverse tasks that need to be addressed during the process that focusing on any single issue may have you missing on another. What is an agent to do?
Standing out in the crowd
One answer should be time blocking. Choose times in your day that you prospect. Another time to return phone calls, another for email, another for researching the market and study of new materials always becoming available. With time blocking you have the chance to fully focus on a single task for a period of time. You have the urgency to get the task completed because you have another task coming up behind this one on your daily schedule. The difficulty is in following through with the plan. That is focus too. There is zero doubt that during your prospecting time a client will call in with a need, or worse yet a friend or family member will distract you with some personal need. What do you do? Your answer to that question can dictate your success of failure in your day.
I has often been said that real estate is not hard, but by no stretch is it easy. Organizing your day to get things accomplished for your clients and your business should be your single minded focus. Learning and growing is about adapting and focusing. What are you going to do today?
I am sure I am just llke so many of you who did not achieve all the goals I set for myself in 2011. So what! I achieved a good 85% of them and when I set my goals each year, as I have today they are mostly reach and stretch goals. I don't ever worry about what I didn't accomplish, but I make an effort to find joy, happiness and energy in the goals I did accomplish. Setting goals sets you apart, you know. Having those goals close at hand makes you remember them. Reviewing your goals on a consistent if not daily basis brings you even further down the path towards achievement. At this point you are one percent of one percent, so why can't I achieve all my goals. Well, number one is I set outrageous goals because I want to stretch myself.
Focusing on what is positive is the surest way to get more of the positive juice flowing. Focusing on the negative gives you just that. If someone in your office starts one of those conversations, RUN. Don't be infected with others views on your business. Don't be reading and repeating negative spin from the media, they don't know either. This may sound hypocritical, and it is, but take all the positive news you hear and spread it everywhere. People want to work with upbeat people, don't you? Be one of those people. If you aren't that by nature, fake it until you can make it an everyday habit.
During the frenzy of goal setting for next year, what are you doing with the goals that you set last year at this time that are still yet, unmet? Do you just roll them over? Do you think about them and wonder why they are not met? Do you devise a strategy for meeting the goal this year, or do you just move on? It is said that successful people set goals and this is true. It is taught that you have to visualize your goal and keep it fresh in your mind to achieve the goal, this too, is true. But is imagining driving your new car, or having $100,000 in your bank account enough? Clearly it will make you feel good about yourself as you slog through your days, but is that enough?
What do you do about your feelings during all of this? Goals are a conscious activity, but it is said that all action is emotional and those emotions are built in your subconscious. This is why feeling your goals and visualizing them is so effective, but what if there is a disconnect, and more importantly, what is that disconnect? I have given this a lot of thought this past few months. I have always been a goal setter and a goal keeper. I am proud of the goals I have accomplished, but I have never achieved, as of yet, the goals I have set for my life. I work to find what the missing ingredient is. It is not just writing down the goals and looking at them. It is not just visualizing the success that I will attain and allowing the joy of that emotional success wash through me. It is more and it is less.
I think this is true of most people I speak with. Instead of looking outside myself for the goals, maybe they are inside and have been there all the time. Maybe by pouring in information and tasks and systems we are covering over the true nature of our goals. All of us want to do the best, be right, be successful as we define that success and be respected for our accomplishments. So this year as I write goals I am looking hard at the goals I didn't accomplish and why. I am looking back through the years and seeing that the goals I didn't accomplish this year, I didn't accomplish last year or the year before that. Does that make me a failure? Well, yes and no; I clearly didn't meet the goal and that is failure, but I also haven't given up so the game is still on.
October is such a great month for real estate. The spring market has had it's closings and the winter months approach. Before the snow blankets us here in the northeast we will be drenched in the fall colors of red, orange, yellow and gold. It is open house month, I am told, but what I know is that with the kids back in school and the weather turing cooler it is easier to get out there and look for a home. I was surprised to see that December is the second largest closing month of the year because I have been told by some agents that everything drops off after the summer. (When will I stop listenting to agents who don't know and live by what other ill-informed agents are telling them? The answer is yesterday.)
