Last week I worked out on Monday and Tuesday. I missed the rest of the week. Not good. It wasn't due to the holiday. It wasn't because I was too busy with clients. I wasn't sick. I just chose not to go. I failed.
We all must face failure from time to time. The key is to not let it last. I learned a few lessons from missed workouts last week, and I am glad to be on the road of improvement. So how do we overcome failure? Here are a few suggestions to get our discussion started:
1. Accountability: most of our real estate offices are working on plans for 2010 this month. It is a great practice to plan ahead. It is a better practice to share those plans with an accountability partner. This past Sunday night, my wife and accountability partner, told me to get to the gym in the morning. When I did not rise in time, she silently scolded me by heading over to the gym without me. Her example and accountability got me back on track this week. I am thankful for her influence. Who will influece you when you are not fulfilling your business commitments to succeed? Does anyone even know that you have a goal of making ten contacts this week? Look around and add some accountability to your business practices with a colleague, your manager, and a family member.
2. Take Action: Failure tends to immobilize us. Unchallenged, one failure begins to weaken our energy for other tasks. After not hosting an open house for six weeks, it is pretty darn easy to continue not hosting open houses. We become static rather than dynamic with each successive failure. Woody Allen, the film director, has a great line, "80% of success is just showing up." If you have an area of failure, what do you need to do to begin showing up? Perhaps it is simply scheduling that open house or creating a manageable plan for the event or registering your activity on the office board or web site.
3. Remember Why - when we are failing at a goal, it is important to re-visit our motivation. Back to my example of exercise, for medical reasons, I need to work out a bit more than the average person. Missing a week's worth of exercise is poison for my body chemistry. When I exercise I know that my energy level will be high, my relationships will be better, and my work performance increases. Waking up early doesn't motivate me, but remembering why I wake and work out does allow me to tap into the inner drive for the activity. Exercise is critical to my success. Why did you decide to market to a farm community? What was your real reason for beginning an effort in online social networking? Reflect and re-discover why you want to do something. If the motive is gone, quit failing and move onto an activity that does inspire you to achieve.
4. Small Steps: my most frequent failures come when I "oversize" a goal. Like a supersized order of fries, overstated goals can just clog the arteries. For example, agents often determine a numerical volume of sales or income for the upcoming year. Three months into the year, one can be wildly off goal, and the remaining nine months are just a march into the rut of failure. Instead, consider setting up goals in small increments. Three key objectives for each day, a weekly calendar, and a ninety-day plan can help you achieve small steps. Break big goals down into small and manageable increments. If I have missed a long period of exercise, I always start back with a low-demand workout. Then the momentum begins to shift from failure to success. Each day increasing the performance level, I am soon back to an optimal level, and more importantly I have built a series of steps that has my actions and habits going in the right direction. In my favorite business book, Og Mandino writes "never will I end the day in failure." Even if everything has gone wrong on a particular day, make your last action a successful one. You can always end the day with a thank you note to a client or an encouraging call to one of your key network members.
5. What controls you? Emotions often dictate our actions. I will get to it when I feel like it. I am waiting for inspiration. These are dangerous mantras. They don't lead to success. Identifying our emotions and giving them healthy expression are marks of a mature person. However, when emotions control us, we fail. Again from Og Mandino, "... strong is he who forces his actions to control his thoughts." Success is about exercising the strongest organ in the body, the mind. We can choose success or feel our way into failure. Make a decision to overcome the failure and take action in that direction. You will quickly find that the despair and frustration of failure are replaced by the enthusiasm and freedom of success.
Now I have to get to the gym :)
Good stuff coach! Ride that bull all the way to the gym!
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