It’s time to usher in a New Year again, and all across the world people of different cultures are coming up with their New Years resolutions. In fact, resolutions have become almost entirely synonymous with New Years Eve (along with champagne and the all-important midnight countdown!)
We use them as a way to decide on means of improving ourselves, leaving behind bad habits and starting to do new, positive things with our life.
They’re a great way to get the year off to an upbeat and enthusiastic start. Big plans and hopeful aspirations mix together to improve our outlook and give us an injection of positivity.
But we need to be realistic. How many of us actually follow through with our resolutions throughout the entire year? How many gym subscriptions are adhered to for just a month or two before the exercise urge drastically drops off? Diets only last halfway through January, learning a new language gets no further than a few words.
Here at the Henry Wong Team® we believe the problem with resolutions lies in the definition itself. The dictionary defines it as ‘to make a definite and serious decision to do something.’
That’s all well and good. You resolve to do something, and then you do it. It’s very black and white. The difficulty lies in how you actually go about achieving those resolutions. It’s not like that one minute where the clock ticks over into the New Year is going to magically change your behaviours and your abilities.
It’s the all-or-nothing approach of New Years resolutions that causes so many people to fail at them. They’re a wish and an aspiration, but they don’t take into account the journey to achievement. And when the first few steps of the journey don’t go as planned people get discouraged. When that happens, this year’s resolutions will quickly fade away, or become next year’s resolutions.
We prefer establishing New Year goals.
A goal is an object of ambition; a desired result to coordinate your efforts towards. Whereas resolutions are rather rigid, goals are flexible and consist of small steps towards an ultimate outcome. Satisfaction and feelings of accomplishment are attained with each step, spurring you on and encouraging you to take the next step.
If a step in the process is too hard, adjustments can be made to work around it and still find a way to reaching the goal. With a resolution, if it’s too hard the whole process falls by the wayside.
We’ve put together some tips for your New Years goals. Hopefully these help you on your journey to improving yourself or your business in the New Year.
– Goals need to be S.M.A.R.T. Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-Sensitive. Following those five principles will help create goals that you’re more likely to achieve. They’ll be realistic, clear and definite, and you’ll be able to gauge your progress as you work towards your outcome.
– Write down your goals. Visualise what you want to achieve and write it down. That is your reference point for your entire journey. It’s important to have something tangible to remind you of your purpose on the journey to goal achievement.
–Take baby steps. Keep it simple and keep it practical. Divide the journey to your goal up into little things that can be done daily and are easily achieved. One step at a time is the way to go.
– Learn from setbacks. Embracing failure as an opportunity to grow will take the fear out of the process. Remember, a setback only affects a single step, it doesn’t need to affect the achievement of your goal. So take it on board, adjust and keep going.
– Don’t compare yourself to others. We’re all different, and this is your journey. Comparing yourself to others and trying to match or emulate them is going to take the integrity out of your own goals. A handy tip is to avoid the hype of social media when you’re trying to achieve your goals. It can clutter your process and eventually discourage you.
As real estate agents in Brisbane, here at The Henry Wong Team® we try and improve ourselves every year. We have specific methodologies around goal setting, time planning and measuring our progress that we’ve developed over the years. If you’d like to know more about them or would like to have any of your real estate questions answered, please get in touch.
