If you have even a slight inkling of perfectionism in you then you will likely be able to relate to this post (I confess I’m a recovering perfectionist myself). The thing about perfectionism is it can be your best ally at times, but also your worst enemy.

Here’s a handy definition from wikipedia for context:

‘Perfectionism, in psychology, is a personality trait characterized by a person’s striving for flawlessness and setting high performance standards, accompanied by critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others’ evaluations.’

If you can relate to the above in any way then you’ll know that when it comes to goal achievement and productivity, having this trait means you can be extremely hard on yourself.

That’s why it’s so important to have a healthy philosophy on productivity. You might be thinking, what on earth is he talking about…philosophy on productivity? Bear with me on this as for those that do, I’m confident it will serve you. Your personal philosophy on productivity matters way more than you think. And here’s why – there are so many people doing amazing things yet being too hard on themselves because they are measuring the wrong things and philosophically just looking in the wrong place for what they think they should be measuring.

What we’re talking about here is the whole ethos for how you feel at the end of a work session, at the end of a busy day, and how you feel about yourself as you head into the weekend or time off. In other words, whether you feel as though you’ve done enough.

The sad truth about entrepreneurship is that you have a never ending list of to dos and regularly feel like “I’ll never be done”. If you’ve ever felt this then that is what getting a healthy philosophy on productivity is going to help with.

This is something I’ve personally wrestled with for as long as I can remember and I’ve actively sought to understand and reframe it. Now that I’ve finally discovered a new paradigm for thinking about personal productivity, I’m excited to share it.

To explain, I need to quickly refer to the Zen Buddhism practice of enso circle drawing – the ritual of attempting to draw the perfect circle. Here’s the thing, when you sit down to draw one you are fundamentally attempting the impossible, for something to be a true circle it has to be perfect and no human being can draw a perfect circle.  

The Zen Buddhists decided to make this a daily practice ie the decision to attempt something that strives for perfection yet cannot ever succeed at being perfect.

As they realised that perfection was out of sight, they dropped the game of trying to be perfect and started embracing imperfections.

This is a powerful metaphor for thinking about productivity, more than that, its the most powerful principle for thinking about my productivity day to day and week to week that I’ve ever come across.

The enso circle is a metaphor for what we do when we sit down to be productive as human beings. We seek to do something as entrepreneurs that is perfect ie we want to win, hit big goals, do 100% of what we are capable of but we need to commit to creative and courageous work that isn’t actually ever done ie we need to draw the perfect circle.

Borrowing the enso principle, we get to liberate ourselves from the belief that we have for everything we are working on to be perfect, by embracing imperfection.

Here’s the key – the magic of the Zen monks drawing these circles is not that they draw them one time, or that it looks a lot or a little like a circle. The magic is that they show up and do it every single day. It’s a ritual that generates incremental progress over time by showing up and striving towards perfection, imperfectly. Perfection is the goal but with the knowledge that they’ll never quite get there, however by consistently practising they actually create something of incredible beauty.

THE MOST IMPORTANT PHILOSOPHY WE CAN EMBRACE FOR OUR PRODUCTIVITY IS STRIVING IMPERFECTLY, EVERY SINGLE DAY.

We can approach our goals and to do’s in the same way as an enso circle. When we plan out our week ahead, we’re creating a vision and a definition of perfection as it relates to what we aspire to get done. All we have to do is show up each day and strive imperfectly in that direction. And when you do or don’t arrive at that perfect place (ie when you’re reviewing on a Sunday night), no matter what happens you’ll create something incredible and you’ll learn more about what it takes to get closer to that idea of a perfect week.

Are you up for striving imperfectly, every day?

As we approach our third year of using booking.com (bdc) to help promote out SA units it’s finally dawned on me how ignorant I’ve been in regards the capabilities of the platform. From the get go, it’s probably fair to say that I’ve seen bdc as little more than a platform to throw up a property listing to a large audience, along with some pricing and availability. This is in part due to the fact that we have been fortunate enough to have grown the majority of our business out of direct contractor type bookings.

For all the niggles SA operators might have with bdc ie fraudulent bookings, the high commission rates etc, there’s no getting round the fact that it’s a powerful ally in you wider SA marketing power team. And we need to make the most of it.

This week we (our Operations Manager and I) met with our bdc Account Manager at their Edinburgh office. I didn’t have high hopes for the meeting, thought we might iron out some of the recent fraud related niggles we’d had in the last few months and not sure what else, however the hour meeting delivered so much more than we expected.

Here’s a quick summary of the learning insights that other SA operators might benefit from (if you’re not doing everything covered here already).  

#1 MAKING THE MOST OF BDC ANALYTICS (using the Pace report)

First, here’s a definition of ‘Pace’ as it relates to the hospitality industry, courtesy of xotels.com

‘In most industries, speed is of the essence! Hospitality is no different. Pace – the rate at which reservations are made for a particular date – is important to control and also to monitor. Why? Because if you can see a pattern forming as reservations build for a certain date, weekend, week or even an entire month each year, this can be immensely helpful when it comes to forecasting: trying to accurately foresee and calculate projected demand and therefore revenue in future years. Also, Pace can determine aspects such as required staffing levels at certain times.’

Our bdc Account Manager talked us through the Pace Report for the Edinburgh area – essentially a chart showing the average room nights booked for each month in 2018 vs this year so far, and what’s booked for 2019 to come. It also showed the ADR – average daily rate that bookers are paying for accommodation in our area.

It was interesting to see that across all types of accommodation for Jan and Feb in our area, bookings are down this year compared to the same period last year. It’s worth noting that if you are running these reports yourself then be sure to not only look at the whole accommodation market but also for self catered only. In our area self catered bookings were actually a little bit up.

You can use the Pace reporting to look data from a number of different angles ie:

-Portfolio Pace – to look at room nights booked this year vs last year

-Peer Group – to look at all the properties of the same type and in the same location as you

-Competitive Set – you can select up to 10 specific competitors (that are listed in bdc) allowing you to compare your property’s performance against others

Clearly there is a lot of data collected by bdc so be sure to delve into it within your extranet and take some time to understand more about what the figures are telling you.

#2 MAKING THE MOST OF RATE CATEGORIES

We have always been on the strictest possible flexible rate category ie non refundable after 60 days or less before check-in. Our Account Manager explained how we are excluding many potential bookers from even seeing our properties so suggested that we use a blend of two rate categories as follows:

-a flexible rate that can be cancelled from 30+ days out (non refundable less than 30)

-offer a non-refundable rate with a discount for those guests happy to book and pay in full 30 or more days out.

The theory here being that we cover all the market in terms of rate categories and boost our conversions. (If you have multiple properties in your account, your bdc Acc Manager can add the policies at a group level for you to save individual editing).

#3 MAKING THE MOST OF PAYMENT METHODS

Bdc are hearing more and more from guests that they want to be able to pay differently ie, often in full at the time of booking, and with different payment methods like PayPal, Apple Pay and other similar offerings from around the world. Again, we were unsure of all this and didn’t have it enabled until now, but there are big benefits of accepting online payments:

-Guaranteed payments, guests pay when they book so no chasing payments or invalid credit card details

-Fewer cancellations, when bookers pay online they are 4x less likely to cancel

-Potential of more potential guests, ie opening up the market to bookers who can’t or don’t want to pay with credit card

In short, be sure to say yes to accepting alternative online payment methods.

#4 MAKING THE MOST OF THE BDC OPPORTUNITIES SECTION

There are two main opportunities to increase bookings through bdc as outlined below. Quickly before I highlight those, be sure to have your listing content scores up at 100% to optimise the conversion of those who do view your listing.

Preferred Programme– Designed to increase occupancy by boosting property visibility, you also get a ‘thumbs up’ sign next to the listing (preferred partners get an average of 65% more page views and 35% more bookings). Property rankings increase with better visibility to all bdc users. Commission to bdc is increased to 18%.

Genius programme– Designed to increase occupancy by ranking boost and better visibility to genius users (on average genius partners increase bookings by 18% and their revenue by 17%). Properties appear to bdc genius guest members (a select group of customers who travel more often, book further in advance, and spend more when booking) with a 10% discount on prices. As a Genius partner, your property will get a special Genius tag, ranking boost and better visibility in search results.

This is far from an exhaustive coverage of what you can do but hopefully serves as a helpful starter for ten.

What else are you doing to optimise your bdc results?

This weekend I had the pleasure of meeting Dan Pattrick (founder of Dapatchi) and hearing him speak. What a joy and inspiration to hear how he has built up a multi-disciplined property investment company.

From humble beginnings in general property maintenance Dan has built up a substantial property business with tens of million pounds of property under development, and nine business divisions covering the full circle of property investing.  What’s more, this has all be achieved at remarkable speed.

His values and heart centred words resonated strongly with me, as I’m sure they did with many in the room. Thanks for your wisdom Dan.

He shared 22 of his success principles for property entrepreneurs- so, without stealing his thunder, here’s 8 of my favourite:

#1 Values are the most under discussed and underrated asset you can have. They solve all problems for you and act as a powerful decision making tool.

[If you’re unsure where to start with your values there’s no better place I know than reading John Demartini’s book The Values Factor and at the very least doing the free values determination exercise  https://drdemartini.com/values-determination/ ]

#2 Don’t be a lone wolf, why walk alone when you can walk further together.

In other words, so much more can be achieved when working with others rather than trying to do it all alone.  Every problem can be solved with a partner, so long as the partner shares your values.

#3 It’s not how you get into a deal that matters, it’s how you get out.

There are 3 main risks in property development:

1- planning risk

2- development risk

3- exit risk

You will need a plan on how to mitigate each of these, especially to satisfy lenders.

#4 Money is the byproduct of your action, not the outcome, find different outcomes and the money follows. Stop asking how to make money and start asking how to add value.

#5 Start recording what you are doing to run your business now. Create your systems which will enable your growth, rather than grow before creating the systems.

#6 Be kind to others – property, like in most businesses, is about the art of people and relationships. Generally the most successful are the most generous.

#7 Have a driver that is bigger than you, when the going gets tough and you get stuck your own self serving desire is not enough to move you.

And to finish, here’s a universal truth

#8 It will be hard and you will f*ck up.

Accept that now, be brave, take action and be the best you.

 

To put a proverbial cherry on this cake of wisdom, here are Dan’s closing words about creating a virtuous cycle for yourself,

“Do something today that you will thank yourself for tomorrow”

If these words resonate with you, why not layer in some accountability and share here what you will do today that you’ll thank yourself for tomorrow?

Recently our mentor advised us on 4 key metrics to focus on, track and measure along the journey to big goal achievement. One of those key areas is education. Coincidentally, I’ve received some similar and very fitting teachings from a couple of virtual mentors this week which really emphasise this point on the need to be strategic about our learning. So here’s my summary for all you voracious learners in the community. There are no shortcuts but these are some of the best pointers I’ve collated in recent times in regards to finding the most organised and result oriented approach to learning.

FOUR POINTERS ON HOW TO STREAMLINE YOUR LEARNING:

(credit here to one of Darren Hardy’s great videos this week and to Peter, one of my other mentors)

#1: Be sure you understand the difference between what you’re studying and what you are just marinating your mind with.

-The stuff you want to be actively studying should be directly related to your no.1 goal this year (ie ask yourself- what’s the no.1 skill needed for achieving that goal?) That’s what you should be consciously consuming, taking notes on and applying.

Then there’s the stuff you are reading/listening/watching to keep your mind and behaviour positive ie podcasts, biographies.

Every property entrepreneur should be picking a capability area to close the gap on that’s relevant to them. Here are some great questions to help you identify what would be a force multiplier for you in your goal achievement.

 

1. What are your biggest fears when you consider your main goal for 2019/or your Q1 90 day plan?
2. What are the most likely points of failure in your plan?
3. What would have to happen for everything to exceed your expectations?
4. What skills would stack the odds in your favour? – i) if you were delegating this to someone, what skills would you look for on their CV; ii) if you had spent the last year mastering anything, what would it have been to help make you great at that thing now?
5. What is the no.1 skill (of those you’ve listed so far) that is likely to drive an exponential result improvement?
6. How many hours invested in this skill would want to see in a staff member working in your role?
7. What specific steps can you take to improve your skill set in this area?

-Books to read

-Courses to complete

-Industry events to attend

-Advisors to work with

The aim is to build a syllabus for yourself, not based on what’s flavour of the month (although I have been culprit of that in the past) but based on the best concepts/practices etc written in your chosen area.

Rather than picking your learning material based on how well it’s marketed, pick it based on the answers to questions like these on what you need and how it fits into your plan.

In my case, I’ve identified the need to grow my capability in marketing, not just within our SA business but across all areas of ours businesses, as it relates to our current and future offerings.

#2: Understand the difference between just in time and just in case learning.

As Darren eloquently pointed out, success seekers consume too much disjointed learning, in other words, just in case we might need it at some point (also referred to as FOMO type learning). My hands are up again, I’ve done this more than I care to recall too. Instead, Darren reminds us to focus on what we need to learn now, to help achieve our goals now.

#3: Learn to go wide (ie get broad exposure across the subject matter) but then go deep.

In other words find one expert you like, or one voice as it were to read/listen to all their stuff. (I”ve consumed pretty much all of the content Darren Hardy has shared since first discovering The Compound Effect in 2008).

#4: You need both skill and wisdom growth.

Put simply, we need to also remember to read/listen to things unrelated to business and property in order to increase our awareness and empathy of people and the wider world.

What will be your biggest force multiplier when it comes to your education for the next few months?

This week I read a fascinating article about fear and greed in the stock market. This was the sub-heading-

“Political uncertainty is making investors nervous, but the best returns flow to those who stay in the market even if times are turbulent”

In reading this article there were several observations from the stock market that carry over to the property market, and that’s what I wanted to share.

One of the key messages from the article was the fact that in amongst this massively uncertain political backdrop, investors are having to live with sharp fluctuations in fund and share prices.

(I’ve personally experienced this with my own share portfolio seeing a 29% drop and a 20% recovery between Sep to Jan). The annoying thing about it is that these sharp movements often have nothing to do with the underlying assets or businesses, and everything to do with political events and speculation.

The market volatility plays havoc for anyone with a strategy to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. (Does this sound familiar for anyone trying to get the timing exactly right to buy a property investment? It can lead to waiting, and waiting and never actually buying something that could have been making money through rental income that whole time.)

The article went on to highlight the major point that history can help serious savers and investors build a fund to pay for the final decades of their lives, or indeed any other financial objective that is 5+ years out.

LESSON #1: HOW TO COPE WITH MARKET TIMING

The past few decades have demonstrated that the best way for investors to cope with the impossibility of market timing is to ignore it. That was the conclusion of a comprehensive analysis of stock market returns over the past 30 years by one of the world’s biggest fund management groups.

Relating that to property, I wouldn’t want anyone to misinterpret the lesson as don’t buy anything for a whole year or more because prices look toppy. Rather it’s a case of stacking the deck in your favour with proper due diligence and being clear on how you add value and create multiple exits to monetise the asset both now and in the long term.

I probably don’t need to remind anyone of the overused quote – ‘when is the best time to plant a tree?….”

The study by Fidelity found that if you invested £1000 in the FTSE All Share index in 1989, it would be worth £11,775 today.

By contrast, had you attempted market timing in buying and selling shares, but missed the best 30 days during these three decades, the total return would only be £2,838.

LESSON #2: IGNORE FEAR AND GREED

One of the Directors at Fidelity, the fund manager said,  “To succeed at investment, we need to ignore fear and greed. Trying to time the market is a fool’s errand, especially when history shows that the best and worst days often tend to be bunched together during times of volatility”

OK, so we don’t have the same kind of up and down spikes within the very short periods in property but the message to heed is not getting caught up in a similar fear and greed sentiment.

LESSON #3: TIME IN THE MARKET

The answer to avoid the stresses of short term fluctuations is to remain fully invested over what you see as your investing lifetime. For many that will be multiple decades. ‘Time in the market is a simpler and surer way to build capital than trying to time the market perfectly.’

Again, these are broad principles we can borrow, rather than a hard rule, but these principles hold a lot of value in the world of property. Yes there will be times you can capitalise on a hot market to sell and release capital. However, if buying to sell, rather than hoping that a rising market will create your desired profit, I would rather advocate forcing your increased value by what you add to the property, or by the business you run through it.

Here are some hard facts to back the long game in property:

UK property values have grown on average 10% a year since the first records began in 1086 with the Domesday Book.

-The average UK property price in Q1 2009 was £149,709*

-The average UK property value in Q2 2018 was £226,906* (source: UK House Price Index gov.uk

So, even though the last 9 years haven’t performed at 10% a year, it still represents a 5.7% a year average growth (a return well above saving rates).

The lessons borrowed from the stock market world hopefully serve as validation for those already investing in property for the long term, and provide sound pros for those just getting started.

With just over a decade into my own property investing journey I fully intend to be in it for many more.

Here’s a classic quote to close on:

“Don’t wait to buy real estate. Buy real estate and wait.” – Will Rogers, actor

Do share your thoughts on property investing during uncertain times.

[Article source: Sunday Times Business Supplement]

P.S. If you’re looking to take your property investing to the next level, I can highly recommend getting yourself to the next Touchstone Six Figure Summit. Book your free seat here https://goo.gl/6QQ1s4

 

Anyone operating serviced accommodation and taking bookings from booking.com (bdc) will know that sinking, annoying feeling of payment disputes and chargebacks. For the most part in our business, we traditionally haven’t had too many since the majority of our bookings have been direct and via an invoice and bank payment.

However, these payment disputes have been increasingly popping up so we thought we’d investigate why and share some findings.

In short, it would appear that more and more fraudsters are stealing credit cards and booking mini breaks using the stolen cards. Not only that, once staying in the serviced apartment they go on a shopping spree online and have the goods delivered to the property they are staying in. Sneaky huh? How do we know this? After one fraudulent stay pre Christmas, a pair of super expensive Nike trainers were delivered to the property he stayed in. We called the online store, who were surprised and grateful that we were returning the goods, and they confirmed that these fraudulent purchases are happening more and more frequently. Using a serviced apartment as the delivery address was new to us though.

The experienced members of the community will know all the below but I’m sure there will be others earlier in their journey who will find this helpful.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GET A PAYMENT DISPUTE AND CHARGEBACK

When you receive notification of a payment dispute on Stripe the amount under dispute is returned to the cardholder’s bank along with a £15 payment fee. You have about a month to respond and provide evidence. Even if you have proof of guest communication confirming a remote check-in, if the card is indeed fraudulent then unfortunately you’re fighting a losing battle. The guest has been and stayed, you’ve paid for the clean and change of linen, and you’ll never be able to re-sell those nights. So, be sure you don’t spend the booking revenue or distribute it too soon.

The second kick in the ribs with too many fraudulent disputes is that your payment gateway will see you as a higher risk and start to increase your commission charges. Or worse, they can shut your account down.

SO WHAT CAN YOU DO TO PREVENT CHARGEBACKS?

For all of your bdc bookings, be sure to cross check the guest address used for the booking with the country the credit card is registered in. If they differ it’s a definite red flag and most likely fraud. You need to request proof of ID to match guest booking name with the name on the card. If the guest refuses to show proof then you may want to cancel the booking. At the very least stipulate that proof of ID is required at check in- and with that there will be a good chance they will cancel anyway.

If you take a booking which you suspect to be fraudulent and you decide to cancel the booking and refund the payment be sure to report the payment as fraudulent to both Stripe, as they can stop any further action being taken with the card, and to bdc so they can cancel any commission charges.

Here are a few more tell tale signs of a potential fraudulent stay:

*The guest refuses a meet and greet

*The guest says they are arriving at a crazy time ie after midnight and so won’t need a meet and greet

*The guest wont answer calls or speak directly but instead insists on text communication

*The guest gives an excuse as to why they can’t provide photo ID

 

What other stories of fraud and preventative measures can you share?

Last week’s post on ecological goal setting seemed pretty well received, so thanks for the kind comments and engagement. The natural next step is to follow up that deep thinking around setting the right kind of goals for YOU, with an implementation plan. That’s what I’m going to outline here.

First a quick summary of the week that was. Alongside progressing my own goal planning work and a couple of days delivering mentoring, there was a big focus for our team on optimising occupancy across our existing SA portfolio. As many of you know, January is never the kindest month in the SA industry so even more reason to dig deep. Here are a couple of the actions that bore fruit for us this week:

1) Sent a bulk text message to 2018 guests for whom we felt would have a reason to be back in our area at some point this year (and offered a wee discount on the first night)

2) Called and emailed a selection of our best repeat guests who we knew would be returning to work on the 7th (ie the construction trade).

So, back to the implementation plan. In the last post I wrote about how to set psychologically optimised goals that are congruent ie your conscious and unconscious mind are aligned in relation to the goals you set.  

In the goal setting process it’s easy to get excited in the now by writing down a big goal but the science of achievement requires us to connect the dots between a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) and what exactly we need to be working on quarter to quarter, month on month and how we’re using our time each day.

The big rationale behind artful implementation is to take the time to do strategic planning now so that at no time during the quarter are you at the desk on a Monday morning wondering what to do to get started (or at least it will be significantly minimised).

An implementation plan prevents that brain fog, but sadly making this investing the time to create such a plan is the most common part of goal setting that people skip. It’s often looked at as too much like hard work-  and you know what, it is hard mental work! Most good things do require some uphill struggle, but it’s also where we can get most clarity. I heard a brilliant quote this week from one of the greats that ties into this point, it goes;

 

“People have uphill hopes, but downhill habits”

– John C Maxwell

In other words, we all want the things that require ‘uphill’ efforts, but are we willing to put in the work that builds the ‘uphill habits’ that will get us there?

You need to take your BHAG and translate it into a project plan. This part of the process is uncomfortable, which is why people skip it but having a well thought through plan will keep you aligned, in the zone and knowing what you have to do next. BHAGs don’t manifest on their own, it takes real intentional work to dream them up, plan the road map, and then of course execute.

Here’s a quick summary of the process for artful implementation that I’ve been taught and continue to use each year. (Chris and I do invest multiple hours in goal planning in the opening weeks of Jan)

IT’S TIME TO BUILD THE FOUNDATION OF YOUR YEAR!

STEP #1: List your key projects

taking everything into account, list 5-20 projects that would have an immediate impact on your business. With this list you are thinking up all the growth driving activities that move you closer to achieving the BHAG (ie various strategies and tactics you want to try that would/could result in a net positive to the business).

STEP #2: Now eliminate all but 3, and ask yourself:

– are you able to complete each one in a 12 week period?

– can you complete these with your current resources ie time, people, money?

STEP #3: BUILD THE OUTLINE PLAN

Now for each project, build the outline for your implementation plan by completing a handful of answers to these 4 foundational productivity questions:

 

For project 1

#1 What specifically needs to happen…to get started? To continue? To finish?

#2 How can you measure progress? (ie no. of viewings/offers per week. Booking revenue, occupancy by month..) When answering these questions think about what can be ritualised/repeated.

#3 What deadlines need to happen within 12 weeks? Think it through and allocate deadlines you can put into your diary.

#4 How can you stack multiple layers of accountability onto this project. In other words, who all can you inform, involve, make a pledge to etc that will help you follow through on your promise. Think mentors, family, advisors, peers).

Do the same for Projects 2 and 3

STEP #4: 12 WEEK PROJECT PLAN

The final stage to this is creating your 12 week project plan where you literally create a grid with 84 days and then populate it with dates, specifics and deadlines (as per your answers to the Q’s above) to work to each day and week. Schedule this stuff in using the mechanisms that work for you, phone, outlook calendar, a wall chart or whatever. Allocate sufficient time and protect it in your diary.

And there you have it.

 

Happy New Year!

In last week’s post I shared the Intelligent Reflection process that Chris and I do each year. Here are just some of the reasons why we complete that reflection process before diving into setting any goals:

*Being a business owner makes you very tough on yourself, but intelligent reflection offers a way out of that.

*It gives you energy and inspiration to continue marching towards your goal, even in the face of feeling you’ll never be done.

*Most entrepreneurs have a lack of awareness of how much they’ve actually done and achieved in a year (in other words we get caught in the trap of looking at the out of reach summit of the proverbial mountain rather than congratulating ourselves on looking back and seeing how far we’ve come).

*It acts as a powerful post mortem analysis on mistakes that you can take valuable learning from

*It’s a way out of the ‘insanity cycle” ie doing the same thing and expecting different results

*You can surprise yourself with some easy wins ie getting clarity on something that got you great results and can be replicated going forwards.

So what about actually setting goals? I’ll take a safe bet that most people in the property community will punctuate this time of year with making resolutions and/or setting goals. Often, these will be ambitious financial based targets which may include numbers of properties, monthly cash flow increase from their BTL’s/SA’s/HMO’s, number of new build developments and so on. In themselves, nothing wrong with goals like those, in the right context that is and with the appropriate alignment at a deeper level. However, without the right psychological alignment, goals like these can fall flat and fail to get off the ground. Therein lies the problem.

I’m about to share one of the biggest insight’s I’ve ever learned on goal setting, here it is – don’t chase after goals that your subconscious mind doesn’t really want. Now, you may be thinking, What on earth are you on about? But if you’re interested to understand this concept and transform your goal setting and achievement, bear with me.

Here’s what I’ve learned over the last few years from a specialist psychologist for entrepreneurs. Our unconscious mind has one sole job – to push us away from pain and towards pleasure. And because of this primitive fact, the subconscious controls our mental valve on motivation.

In other words, one seriously needs to consider the secondary and tertiary consequences of pursuing a goal because the subconscious will slam on the breaks if it thinks PAIN is in the future. As a simple example, if we start the year saying I want to double my income from property, but as time and activity goes by the brain realises that in order to actually double the income it would mean significantly more time sourcing/viewing/travelling…(you fill in the blanks of the secondary consequence) and less sleep/more stress/less time with family (tertiary consequence).

What I’ve just highlighted can’t be underestimated, it is a major cause of feeling ‘stuck’ during the year, chasing after what you THINK are the right goals for you. Self sabotage arises from pursuing certain goals when the unconscious mind doesn’t get the same excitement as the conscious mind, because it’s worried about pain. But with alignment, motivation happens intrinsically, it isn’t something you need to will into existence.

So what’s the answer?

ECOLOGICAL GOAL SETTING

This is the real gold dust. This is the stuff that’s been taking me a while to embed but I’m really starting to see the power in it year on year. You may wonder what is meant by ‘ecological’ in relation to goal setting.

 

Meaning of ecology from the online dictionary

‘the branch of biology dealing with the relations and interactions between organisms and their environment, including other organisms.’

In the context of goal setting, the purpose of ecology is all about alignment between the conscious and unconscious mind. Having also learned about highest values from Dr John Demartini, I liken this alignment concept to his work on values ie we have to balance out our capitalist goals with our other highest values. We will thrive more in business when other parts of our life thrive too.  

So to optimise chances of goal achievement we must run the goal setting through a filter of well formed conditions.

These conditions include the following:

#1) The goal must be stated in positive terms

#2) The goal must be initiated and maintained by you

#3) The goal must use sensory based descriptions of outcomes and steps

#4) The goal is ecological in every sense ie think through how it will affect other areas of your life

#5) There is more than one way to achieve the goal

You can see this is a completely different process compared to just writing out a list of exciting things you would like to have or happen. Thoroughly thinking through goals like this is designed to set your unconscious mind building a map, a reference place and foundation for what’s involved in achieving these goals.

I appreciate this is a lot to digest so if you got this far, well done. Even better, if you choose to act on this and implement it with your own goal setting you will be doing the work to set yourself up for a great year ahead.

We’ve been toying with the idea of holding an online walkthrough session of the advanced goal setting process for those keen to implement it for themselves- Hit reply/PM me and let me know if you would be interested in that.

Wishing you all a 2019 of good health, growth and fun.

The final week of the year and the first week of the new year offer us the time to pause for reflection and design, with intention. It is important to think about the past year intelligently because past performance is the best predictor of the future.

This is a short post but it contains absolute gold for you if you choose to invest the time to work through the following 6 part questions for yourself and your own last 12 months.

This intelligent reflection forms the most important part of the year end review and planning process. In my questionable opinion it’s essential to punctuate this time of year with such a process. I am starting this exercise myself now and it forms part of the overall review and goal setting process that I invest significant time in over the first couple of weeks of each year.

Happy New Year, and wishing you health, wealth and happiness in 2019!

PART 1

*What are my personal current strengths?

*What are the business’ current strengths?

*What were your biggest accomplishments this last year?

*What marketing won this year?

*What was the best thing your business created for you?

*What was the most extraordinary value or customer experience that you created? (who did we really move the dial for?)

 

PART 2

*What were the most important lessons learned?

*What were your weak points, what do you need to improve?

*Are there any threats to your business or market?

*Any missed opportunities?

*What are the current weaknesses of your business?

*Were there any ways to improve customer service in the last year?

PART 3

*Specific metrics for your business last year (what was it we were focussing on? What were we trying to grow? What were the conversion rates we were trying to improve?)

*Products/services sold in 2018?

*2018 gross revenue?

 

*2018 Expenses?

 

*Split into 3 categories- what percentages were:

Marketing _

Operations _

Salaries _

 

*2018 net profit

 

PART 4 (need to compare year on year, power of measurement)

 

On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your:

 

*Lead Gen –

 

*Lead conversion –

 

*Customer fulfilment (following through on the promise)-

 

*Human resources (are they the best people in their roles)-

 

*Financial Systems (how clear on numbers month on month)-

 

*Market research –

 

*Satisfaction of the people in the business –

 

*Satisfaction with your work life balance –

 

PART 5

– Write a  letter to yourself (having reflected on each section). Write it as if you’ve gone back in time and are writing the letter on 1st Jan 2018 explaining the bumps, scrapes, wisdom to come. This works on the idea of reconciling expectations from a year ago with where you really are today.

 

PART 6

What single word would put a name to 2018?

Being in the property investing community, I’m sure I speak for many of us when I say that it can be quite easy at times to measure wealth on objective scales ie like no.of properties we own, actual equity in the properties, monthly net positive cash flow from our BTLs/HMOs/SA units etc etc.

Whilst monetary wealth is super important to create in order to afford us freedom of choice, to look after our health, our loved ones, to enjoy our leisure time, indulge at times, and to give generously etc….there is another crucial measure of wealth. And to paraphrase the words of one of my favourite virtual mentors, here it is,

 

“Wealth is not a state of bank account nor a material checklist, it’s a state of mind and of being”. – Darren Hardy

 

And here’s my take on what Darren meant by this – At this time of year, as we surround ourselves with loved ones, and the afford ourselves the time to really engage with them, it’s the perfect time to consider how wealthy are you really? To love and be loved. To feast, drink, laugh and be merry with your family and friends. That’s a real and meaningful measure of wealth.

So wherever your property journey got you to financially by the end of 2018, take the time to consider your wealth in other areas of life, and be intentional about making the most of your time with loved ones at this magical time of year.

 

P.S. During this exact week last year I shared a post about “Presents Or Presence This Christmas’ which may be appreciated at this time.

http://adaeroproperty.com/week-51-presents-or-presence-this-christmas/

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas.