Goals to Die For
The difference between achieving your dream life and living unfulfilled can come down to something very simple, clear goals. Eric and I often meet people who are amazed at what we have accomplished in just a few short years. We always tell them we had a very clear vision and defined goals. Without that, we wouldn’t be where we are today. This is by no means an attempt to brag about what we have done because anyone can do it. My goal (pun intended) for the article is to provide others with the tools needed to reach their dream life, no matter what it is.
Dr. Gail Matthews conducted a study on goals and found that we are 42% more likely to achieve them if we write them down. This one simple hack can have a significant impact on your chances of success! We have found it to be true in our business and life but there are some key aspects to a goal that will help you create meaningful targets.
First, we focus on creating SMART goals. This was something that came up often during my undergraduate business studies and really resonated with us for our business. You want your goals to be:
Specific - very clear, detailed, and narrow; going too broad can make it hard to determine if you were successful
Measurable - how will you evaluate your goal? Is there a metric you can tie to it to make it very clear if you succeed or not?
Attainable - is the goal reasonable for the timeline and other constraints?
Relevant - does the goal line up with your Why - check out our blog post here
Time-bound - set a defined timeline for the goal
For example, if your goal is to lose weight you want to make the goal a SMART goal to increase your chances of success. Instead of “I want to lose weight” your goal should be something like “I want to lose 10 pounds in the next 3 months.” The goal is very clear and specific, it is measurable because you clearly state 10 pounds. Most experts recommend losing a pound a week so 10 pounds in 12 weeks is attainable. We are going to assume it is relevant to the person setting the goal since they are wanting to lose weight and it is time-bound because there is a three month target. By creating SMART goals we have set clear priorities that can easily be measured and we can tell if we are successful or not at the end of the timeline.
Another great way to go about goal setting is to use the 4 Disciplines framework established by Chris McChesney, Jim Huling, and Sean Covey.
Discipline 1 - Focus on the Wildly Important - you should narrow your goals to only the most important. We can easily get distracted and often take on more than we can handle so narrowing to the most important will keep us on track to reach the more impactful goals.
Discipline 2 - Act on the Lead Measures - lead measures are the activities that lead to success while lag measures are the outcome that is measured after a period of time. In our weight loss example, the lead measures would be working out 5 days a week and restricting calories to 1,300 per day while the lag measures would be the weight on the scale. In our SMART goal above, we might modify the goal from losing 10 pounds in 3 months to working out 5 days a week and restricting calories to 1,300 per day for the next 3 months.
Discipline 3 - Keep a Compelling Scoreboard - keeping track in real time can help you stay focused and more motivated to work on your goals
Discipline 4 - Create a Cadence of Accountability - have a relationship with your goals and check in on them regularly with others. The Matthews study previously mentioned also supports that having accountability makes you much more likely to achieve your goals.
Now that you have a clear framework for creating a goal, you want to break it down into bite sized chunks. When we started our business we had a goal to be financially free in 5 years. This was incredibly daunting so we decided to break this 5 year goal down into smaller time frames. We knew we needed about 25 properties to reach our goal and thought we would start slower but gain momentum in later years. We decided to break the 5 year target into annual goals to start. This might not be the right timeline for you so pick something that aligns with your goals and dreams. We decided in order to reach our goal of 25 homes in 5 years, we needed to buy 2 homes the first year, 4 the second year, 6 the third and fourth years, and 7 the fifth year. Now that we knew we needed two homes in our first year, we decided to set a goal for the first quarter. We wanted to have a home under contract by month three. In order for us to reach that quarterly goal, we needed to analyze and put in a written offer on 15 properties in the first month. To get 15 offers written we knew we needed to find about 60 homes to analyze so we should analyze 15 homes a week or three per working day.
We were able to take this very big and daunting goal of achieving financial independence into something much more manageable. By focusing on what we need to do today and this week, we are able to take away some of the fear of investing and keep our blinders focused on the task at hand. You’ll notice we focused on creating lead measures with analyzing properties and kept our goals SMART as we broke it down from our 5 year target to the weekly or daily target. Eric and I used this process every week in our business while we were growing our rental portfolio and still use it today as we grow our newest venture.
Our goals are designed to be appropriate in the moment but we often find things changing. We have weekly reviews of our goals to make sure we are staying on track and sometimes we find that a goal isn’t relevant anymore and we remove it from our targets. The purpose of a goal is to help you define what you want to achieve for your business or your life. Sometimes our wants change and with that our goals will shift. Some of the things Eric and I worked for early on are no longer relevant because we decided that things weren't important anymore. You want to have a relationship with your goals and be flexible enough to change them as needed. If you have written goals but don’t meet them at the end of the timeline, don’t be discouraged. You might need to adjust the goal or may just need a few more months to achieve it. At the end of the day, you want to strive towards your dream life. If you are still progressing but don’t meet the goal you should still celebrate the achievements you have made.
How can you make the time you spent reading this blog worthwhile? Is it reading The 4 Disciplines of Execution? Spending time creating SMART goals for your business? Creating a tracking and accountability system for your goals? or something else? Don't let the time you just invested go to waste. You only get one life so live it purposefully!
