When I was in Real Estate in San Jose I was associated with two different companies. One was Kmetovic and Ingalls, the other was Allstate Realtors. I will talk about Kmetovic and Ingalls another time. The subject of this article is Goals. Dick Calafato was the owner and President of Allstate Realtors. One of the things that he did was establish a meeting each year for all of the real estate agents and staff of Allstate for the express purpose of talking about Goals. The meeting would happen in January each year. It would begin with the handing out of sales awards for the previous year. Once that was done the rest of the meeting dealt with setting Goals. Until I participated in one of these meetings I really didn’t have an appreciation for what Dick planned for the goal setting portion. Basically, to him, setting goals was not only necessary for your success, it was the single most important part of everything you did. He suggested that each of us establish our business goals, our professional and career goals, our personal goals, our financial goals and our family goals. He wanted us to break down all of these categories. Be sure to write them down and carry them with us at all times. I had not done this before and it was a real eye opener to me. Being challenged to actually breakdown goals into all of these separate areas and write them down and then share them with everyone was in many ways life changing. It moved us from some general ideas about our goals to some very focused realities and specific breakdowns of various goals that we had established for ourselves. The very first time I went through this exercise I was a bit overwhelmed. Each year when I went through this I got much better at it and eventually it wasn’t just broad statements of goals but then breaking the goals down into the elements that are required to achieve those goals. The other point has to do with the fact that the goals you set in January might change drastically as the year unfolds. Maybe the initial goals were unrealistic, so it was necessary to reevaluate them. Maybe more emphasis needed to be put on personal or family goals. Another point was that when looking at your goals as a whole it became more clear how you could balance your life in many ways through the establishment and commitment to the goals that you had written down and carried with you.
Finally, there was one more element to all of goal stuff. We were encouraged to celebrate our achievements, big or small. When we were successful it was necessary to acknowledge the success and take a little time to celebrate. Of course, that was the best part, but it is necessary. Even though you may simply be patting yourself on the back it is an important part of the process. I am convinced that to be truly successful in business and in life that you must take the time to set goals, write them down and carry them with you. These provide a roadmap for you that you can continually make reference to so you can get where you want to go.
To prove that goals can change…when I was in College I thought if I could earn $10,000 in a year and live in a $20,000 home I would have made it. I have revisited those goals a few times in my life. How clueless was I? The one goal I never had to change was to spend the rest of my life with Kathy and love her everyday…it was an easy one to achieve. The only problem was that it only lasted for the rest of her life. I still love you everyday sweetheart.
