It’s a New Year, Time to Review Your Goals
So often people get started with the New Year with great intentions. They want to do better and change their life. It is great to want to change your life but without a plan – you will end up spinning your wheels. Here are some ideas that will help you as you think about starting off 2009.
Look at your life from several different areas -
- Financial
- Career
- Family
- Spiritual
- Physical / Health
- Community Outreach
- Personal Development
A well rounded life includes all of these aspects so you should look at them all and determine what changes you would like to make in each category. I recommend that you don’t try to tackle more than 1-2 goals per category or you could get overwhelmed.
Goals should be S.M.A.R.T. – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, & Time Specific.
For example, let’s talk about financial goals. Maybe you want to acquire long term passive income. The best way to do this is through the power of rental real estate. So one of your goals may be to purchase 2 houses a year for 10 years. That’s a SMART goal. Now what makes a goal successful is not just writing the goal down – but putting together a written action plan once you have formulated your goal.
In our example – how are you going to go about acquiring those houses? You need to put together the action plan to make that happen. Something like – January – Meet with my mortgage lender and determine if I can finance the properties. Interview and hire a team of professionals – Real Estate Agent, Property Manager, Loan Officer, Real Estate Attorney, Accountant, etc. Then once you have your team – prepare for the business. Yes real estate investing is a business. Plan for asset protection, etc.
Once you have everything ready to go – your action plan should include the number of houses you plan to see each week and the number of offers you need to submit to get to your goal.
Each week you should evaluate your action plan. Don’t just keep your goals in a drawer. Look at them in the morning and at night. Evaluate your progress every week. This will help you get and stay focused!
Happy 2009! We hope it is your best ever!
January 17th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
I usually create my business plan for the following year in November so I can start implementing my plan early instead on January 1st. My plan always covers personal development and family. Without your family, what’s the point?
February 11th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Anne, you’ve probably seen or read it but I highly recommend The Secret. While some of it may not be right for some people, the idea should be universal. Positive thinking. Negativity does nothing to promote your goals. Always thinking about your goals and that you will accomplish them will do wonders for you no matter what your goals are.