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Three Ways to Avoid Meeting Your Professional Goals

Mar 2, 2024

an unhappy looking real estate agent
At the beginning of the New Year, a significant population focuses heavily on meeting goals—particularly goals surrounding weight loss and exercise. In January and February, everyone is usually super pumped to meet their goals. Most people are still hitting the gym, and not eating an entire gallon of ice cream before bed. With all the temptation and distraction in our daily lives, no matter the month it is more difficult than ever to stick to a plan and meet your goals.

Tips on Meeting Your Professional Goals


Here are three ways to avoid meeting your professional goals and a few tips for ways to overcome them:

  1. Go in Circles. Perhaps you are a nit-picker or perhaps you tend to stress over things. Trust me, neither of those traits is bad. As a matter of fact, they show concern and an attention-to-detail—both of which are extremely laudable qualities. That being said, if your focus on detail or your worry stops you from getting stuff done, it is time to make a change. Individuals who ‘go in circles’ cycle back to yesterday’s problem or issue and worry about it or try to work on it again (and again).If you are constantly going in circles, you are not moving ahead or making progress.It’s important to consistently moving forward. Consider your year as a marathon. Even if you cannot run the entire race, you need to continue walking forward. You cannot go back to pick up a rock or clear a path. Instead, continue to move forward, even if you do it at a slower pace. Apply this analogy to real estate and you will meet your goals.
  2. Be a Yes Man (or Woman). There are certain circumstances where you just can not be helpful, no matter how much you would like to. There are also certain people that may take a great deal of your time but where you may not reap any benefit. For example, you may agree to take an overpriced listing, which you’ll never sell. That’s a tough one, and it probably will never close. Before you launch any boat, you want to ensure that the ship is seaworthy and will get to its destination. Thoroughly weigh your prospects and your leads, and if you recognize individuals that interfere with your ability to meet your goals, then send them elsewhere.
  3. Focus on Minutiae. Minutiae are the small trivial details of something. And, real estate transactions are filled with great deals of details—a few of which relate to you, and others are not. Minutiae, however, gets in the way of moving forward. For instance, if you have planned to make ten phone calls on particular morning, and you get to the office and focus on why the copier isn’t working, why your computer cannot connect to the Web, or why your client cannot locate a file, then you are not concentrating on meeting your goals.Allocate bits of time through the day to manage the trivial items that would normally get in the way of meeting your targets. That way you can progress without moving back.

I am often so tempted to eat that gallon of ice cream or get involved in that activity that it gets in the way of meeting my objectives. It is difficult to say ‘no.’ But, similar to hitting the gym all year, you will see the results of self-control—maybe not instantly but later. And believe me, there will be payoffs!

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