In the last issue, we explored the first point in this six-point formula to achieve goals. This formula is taken from a study by General Electric. The findings are very similar to several other studies I’ve read done by businesses with millions of dollars and talented, educated personnel. Let’s take advantage of the business community’s findings, and apply them to our productivity challenges.
The Hidden Secret of Goal Achievement
We have already explored the first point to achieving goals, assuring that these are specific, challenging goals. The other five points we must put to work to gain goal achievement have to do with enlisting another person in the achievement of our goals.
Here they are:
2. Get immediate feedback from someone who is skilled at coaching so you get the guidance you need to stay on track
3. Get feedback on performance, not on you as a person, so you stay
focused on what you’re doing not what you are
4. Get positive feedback so you are motivated to continue
5. Feedback needs to be focused on the future so you’re inspired
6. Be sure your goals are created mutually, by you and your coach, so they are your goals, not those of someone else
Three Common Errors that Work Against our Goal Achievement
From my experience coaching real estate professionals, and my lifelong experience as a musical performer and teacher, I have drawn some conclusions about creating great performance with real estate professionals. But, I think that real estate professionals are thwarted in goal achievement because of three common errors in thinking. The first is:
Treating real estate as a knowledge pursuit instead of a performance art
Because of that, we try to get better by knowing more. That won’t work. We must look at real estate as a performance art. In other words, treating what we do as a series of skills. If that’s true, then, we should be able to get better by increasing our skills, right?
However, most people don’t have experiences where they were able to learn a skill and get better at it. So, they assume the second common error:
They ‘don’t know there’s a system in every discipline that allows performers (that’s us, real estate agents and leaders), to get better at what we do
Unless you’ve been coached in developing a skill, you wouldn’t know that there’s a specific way to get better. Most people don’t have the experience of starting piano lessons or golf lessons, and seeing the progress that accrues with a good coach. So, we think that the first time we do something is the level of performance we will always have—it’s as good as it’s gonna get. We take ‘fake it till you make it’ so seriously that we just keep faking it!
Third, most of us think
Just trying to get better on our own is the only way to do it
I believe the reason we think that is that we hit that ‘ceiling of achievement’ over and over on our own. Then, we try, on our own, to break through, and just exhaust ourselves. Finally, we admit, we’re not getting any better. We’re frustrated. We quit. But, rather than looking outside ourselves as great performers do, we keep the responsibility and the blame entirely within ourselves. So, we create low self-esteem and start thinking of ourselves as just ‘so-so’. Getting outside that vicious circle is critical, if we are to achieve our goals.
Banishing the Three Errors in Thinking is a First Step in Goal Attainment
Now, we know to reach our goals, we have to think of our profession as a ‘performance art’. We have to apply the six step formula for goal attainment. In a later article in this series, we’ll discuss the importance of finding that best performance coach, to carry out those five of six steps in goal attainment.
