Improving Boulder real estate service is a goal, challenge and dare

For those of you who don’t know… or just don’t know me, I’m a person seeking constant and never ending improvement in a lot of areas of my life.  One look at my house and you’ll see there is always a project!  Under the surface, away from the house, there is a Realtor addicted to continuing education.  A service provider who welcomes suggestions for improving real estate service and takes requests for information that can be blogged etc.  Part of this years challenge was to take the amount of work I do, the number of projects on the go and level of service I want to provide and increase it.  What?  That’s crazy right?  No.  The plan is to improve my productivity not increase the hours I’m working. Improving Boulder real estate service by working smarter.

I have a business coach.  I set daily, weekly, monthly and yearly goals and I’m accountable to her and myself, constantly.  But sometimes I need more.  A pep talk or even a kick in the butt!

Then there was the day I enrolled in Darren Hardy’s Insane Productivity course. Holy crap!  Umm… it appears I have some habits that need to be changed and I am less organized and accountable than I gave myself credit for. For one thing, I had to recognize that Facebook was training me.  Training me to log in a little too often and lose hours of my life. Training me to post something then check for validation – to see who “likes” my post (read: ME) and how quickly I can accumulate other peoples acknowledgement. I’m sure there is a zone where this is still somewhat healthy, but I’m more sure I was not in it!

Last week I had to give up multi-tasking.  A challenge set forth by this course and taken up by me after reading that multi-tasking has been shown to reduce IQ by 10 points – And to all my chilled out Coloradan friends, you should know that a quick smoke from one of those “wellness clinics” only reduces IQ by 5 points!  That’s right, not only will multi-tasking increase the risk of traffic accidents and make your “real” friends feel they are not as important as your “virtual” friends when you check Twitter at the lunch table, but you will actually be a bit less intelligent than if you were stoned.

Side note:

A survey asking people about the things they would give up indefinitely instead of giving up their smart phones, revealed that:

33% of the people would give up sex

50% of the people would give up caffeine

50% of the people would give up exercise

66% of the people would give up chocolate (sacrilege!)

And my personal favorite… 43% of the people would give up SHOES!!!

I digress.  It’s neither here nor there that I’m not alone in some of my bad habits.

This weeks challenge is goal centered too. Goals should SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time Bound – and that’s all well and good.  However, a person needs motivation for completing it. The WHY has to be bigger than the obstacles in the way of completion.

My goal is to have written 100 blog posts by the end of 2014.  Why?  Because it’s what my clients want and deserve. It’s good for business and really, it’ s good for me  too since I learn a lot by putting thoughts into paragraphs. The question is then why I might procrastinate? Why I might prioritize other tasks (including doing not much else) ahead of blogging?  I needed a bigger “WHY do it”. Something more passionate that drives me.

Motivation is motivation… it shouldn’t matter if its a carrot or a stick.

With that in mind, let me share this weeks challenge; To take a goal, give it a time frame and agree to a consequence if that goal is not accomplished.  The consequence?  Donate to a person, organization or cause that you REALLY don’t support.  My check for $100 was written to an organization I don’t support or even like a little bit.  Coach Clara has custody of the check and if she has not had confirmation from me by December 31st this year of 100 published blog posts, she mails it in… And we will probably both cry!!!  (Sounds like good motivation to me!)

The other part of the challenge is to declare the goal publicly.  You are hearing it first here!  But if you’d like to discuss goals… Yours or mine… Just give me a call.  Together we can get you where you want to be    🙂

 

P.S:  Today is my birthday! I’m officially 40 and celebrating it with my sweetie on a quiet lake in northern Wisconsin… See you back in Colorado in a few days.  🙂