Happy Quitters Day!

January 19th is “Quitter’s Day”.

Originally coined (I think) by Strava, the athletic social network, Quitters Day marks the day when most people give up on their New Year’s resolutions. Strava found that by the 3rd week of January, 50% of their users had abandoned their health goals for the year.  That’s a travesty! Why does this happen, and more importantly, how can you, as a real estate agent, avoid falling into this trap?

The Pitfall of Focusing Solely on Goals

As I shared earlier this month, the critical error most people make is focusing solely on the goal – like how many houses you want to sell in 2024. While having a goal is essential, it’s not the goal itself that leads to success. You can’t simply conjure a goal into existence; you need a system to make it happen. In sales, the system is built on positive sales habits.

Habits Over Goals

The key to avoiding the Quitters Day slump is to shift your focus from your goals to the habits that will help you achieve those goals. It’s about asking, “What habits do I need to form to reach my goals?” Habits are the daily actions, the small steps that you take consistently, which eventually lead to the accomplishment of your goal.

Discipline: The Bridge Between Habits and Goals

Discipline plays a pivotal role in this process. It’s the bridge that connects your daily habits to your ultimate goals. Discipline takes effort, mental fortitude and energy. After all, you’re doing something new (and probably not fun!) for your brain. But once you use your discipline to perform the new activities enough days in a row, that activity then becomes a habit, and we perform habits with no need for discipline and little to no internal resistance.  Habits are necessary for success. In fact, it’s not an exaggeration to say the degree of success (or lack thereof) that we experience in our careers is the sum of the positive (and negative!) habits that drive our daily choices and activities.

Thinking of Quitting? Realign Instead

If you find yourself wavering or if you’ve already started to let go of your goals, it’s not too late to get back on track! If you’re not hitting your initial sales goals, that can be demoralizing. This can sound counterintuitive, but try this on for size: let go of your sales goal. Instead of obsessing over the number of sales you want to achieve, concentrate on using your discipline around the activities that will drive sales in your business. Eventually, those disciplined behaviors turn into habits, and those habits will get you to your sales goals!

Forming the Right Habits for Real Estate Success

In real estate, the right habits might include setting aside time each day for lead generation, improving your knowledge of the market and sales skills, dedicating time for client meetings, or even enhancing your social media presence for better engagement. These are tangible actions you can take every day, actions that are within your control, and that will over time lead to achieving your sales goals.

2024: Don’t Be a Quitter

Don’t quit on yourself and goals for 2024! We’re only three weeks into this year; it’s way too soon for that! As we pass National Quitters Day, let’s reaffirm our commitment to our goals and identify the activities that we need to perform every day – first through discipline, later as a habit – that will ultimately lead us to our desired outcomes.