Carra Riley is a wonderful and generous mentor and teacher. She has many talents and accomplishments that we can all benefit from. I hope you will take a moment to read her strategies for goal setting in 2010.
Goal Setting 2010 part 2 of 4
Homework from part 1 of 4Start with a list similar to the ideas below so you can really break the concepts down and FOCUS with a specific plan for each category to accomplish your goals for 2010.
- Family
- Health
- Finances
- Personal Development
- Business Plans
- Philanthropy
- Love
- Education
- Career
- Exit Plan
This post will address the 1st four components to creating a goal for 2010.
Your list may be different and that is absolutely fantastic, just identify what it is you want to accomplish in each of the areas or create new areas that mean something to you.
1. Family
If family is first in your life... then make them be a priority!
Take out your planner and write in all theimportant dates!
Birthdays, Anniversaries, Holidays, School vacations, School conferences and sporting events for your children or your spouse/significant other. You can't love your neighbor without loving yourself first. So plan time for yourself and your family/extended family.
Plan to make your personal appointments a TOP Priority!
I only missed one basketball basketball game for my daughter in playing ball from 6th grade to senior year. The game I missed was 3 hours from home and my husband was taking her on a dad and daughter adventure.
My husband and I worked as a real estate team and we made our daughters school activities part of our plan every year and everything worked around them, including closings. If she had a game we would rearrange any closing time, inspection, appraisal, showing ect. so we would not miss our family event. This NEVER had a negative effect on our business. We simply stated we had another appointment at that time and we had to schedule around it.
Think about this... if you had an appointment with your Accountant, Doctor or Dentist and said you could not make a specific time for a showing or a closing because of an appointment conflict everyone understands... what is the difference if the appointment is with your family?
It's an appointment, it's a priority and a non-negotiable activity in my book.
To achieve balance in your life and reduce stress, you have to set priorities and then behave like the plan you have set is something that you will not deviate from. We all end up doing what we really want to do anyway...so just determine in your own mind what is important then live by those guidelines.
My husband and I have Wednesday as our date day. We go to the movies and lunch. Sometimes we do errands but we always have our date.
The key to success is A. having a plan and B. working the plan.
2. HealthMany of us say health is a priority but when it comes to action it might all just be lip service.
Identify if you need to change eating habits? Do you need to set up an exercise plan?
Behavior modification starts with small steps.
Do some research on support groups if you need that kind of thing to create a good nutritious eatingplan.
There are many online groups now that you do not even have to go out of the house to get some guidance. There are morning conference calls to help you stick to the plan... there are exercise videos you can do at home. So there should be no excuse for not working out some plan to stay on track with the proper eating and work out program.
Walking around one block could be the start of getting out to exercise. Parking way out in the parking lot gives you more exercise to enter a store. Taking the stairs instead of the elevator gives you more exercise.
These are small steps which can get you to create a program that is going to work for you.
A weekly sporting activity like tennis, racquetball, skiing, golf are all things which will help with your fitness goal and should be part of your planning. Riding a stationary bike, walking on the tread mill for 30 minutes might be how you start to creating a fitness plan that you can stick to. Maybe a yoga or stretch class all of which can be added to your planner and become part of your health success routine.
Creating a weekly menu of healthy foods will help you stay on track. Getting all the temptations out of the kitchen and pantry will also help you stay focused. Make a weekly grocery list, include healthy snacks and only buy what is on the list and only eat what you have planned for meals and snacks.Plan in a day of eating something you would like so you don't feel so deprived. Make the free day one where you might be going out with friends or to someones home for dinner.
The key to success with a Health plan is to have the planned foods at your home and be prepared with snacks for the day. Make doing the exercise a priority and a non-negotiable part of the day, like brushing your teeth. (For 2010, one of my goals is to work this plan, I can talk the talk.. now walk the walk!)
3. Finances
Identify how much money you need to live on each month.
Add to that the amount you would like to save each month for investments or retirement and yourestimated taxes. Don't forget to include vacation money and preventative maintenance issues on your car, your home and any luxury toys you might have. It is all a part of your big picture and you need to have a grasp of exactly how much it costs to maintain the lifestyle you are living.
Planning for the future is an important part of the finance equation. How much you need to save or invest NOW is going to determine what you lifestyle will be like in retirement.
If you are in any type of commission sales or an owner of a business, this planning model can apply. I am going to use real estate as an example.
Once you have determined how much it costs you to maintain the lifestyle you have you can work backwards. Identify how much money you have to make, how many homes you have to close or commissioned products you have to sell, to meet your financial goals. If you are on a commission based pay schedule you need to identify what your average commission is. Then determine how many listings sold or sales you need to add up to the total amount needed. The same principle applies to any commissioned sale product or any owner operated business. If you are in real estate, the next process includes identifying how many buyers you have to take out to have one sale or how many listings you have to take to have one sale close.
Once you know the number of listings or sales you need to make to reach your financial goals, you have to create a plan. Determine how many buyers you have to get in the car to complete a sale and how many listings you need to have in inventory to close the amount you need each month.While creating this post I ran into a major design flaw which created havoc with my formatting. I searched and could not find an answer to my problem in our resources so I contacted activerains, Brad Andersohn. He walked me through the draft and solved my problem. We started talking about goal setting and I found out that Brad actually designed a program which calculates exactly what I am describing in this post. The program, available online helps agents identify what they need to do to create a specific amount of income. It is identical to what I have done by hand for years. The program is called Agent Assist and has to be one of the most comprehensive and USER FRIENDLY programs I have seen to help an agent stay on track. I will be discussing more about the how to's of the program in part 3 of this 4 part series in Business Planning ad the mechanics are the same but with the computer tracking it makes the entire process much less complicated and easy to track and be accountable.
The key to success with a financial plan is to know your monthly debt service and build on that number to create savings and additional discretionary spending funds.
4. Personal Development
This component requires a look into yourself with a magnifying glass to see where you want to go.
Only you can know what your PASSION in life is and how you are going to be able to follow that dream.
Start by making a list of things you would like to do in your life. Call it a "bucket list" a "Goddard list" or wish list. Make the list with people you love or do it alone.
This is all about Personal Development and what YOU would like to do with your life.
If you want to go scuba diving in the Grand Cayman Islands then you need to take scuba lessons. To start look in for places locally that give scuba lessons where you can become certified and make plans for a trip to the Grand Caymans.
If you want to climb all the 14,000 peaks in your area then make a list of those peaks and do research on the trails and how and when they can be climbed. Consider joining a group to climb with and do training to achieve the goal.
If social media is something you would like to learn more about then make a plan to spend a specific amount of time each week reading about what it is you want to learn. Possibly sign up for some classes and start to practice.Goal Setting is a process. It is like building a house. You must start with a foundation and add all the elements in an order to come out with a finished product!
Part 3 in the series of 4 will cover: Business Plans, Philanthropy, Love and Education
Part 1 of the Goal Setting series of 4
Pamela Cendejas
Quite often overlooked as an SEO tool, press releases are very valuable for marketing yourself. Press releases aren't just for celebrities, government agencies and news forums. They are amazing ways to market an upcoming company event, open house or any other announcement you may have. Press releases are crawled by search engines, which, in turn, can help 
time of the year.
About the Author: Nancy Milton, GRI, is a REALTOR with the 
Like waistlines, websites can get soft if you don't keep working on them. Here are a few tips on how to 
When I was a flautist in high school, my music teacher always told us: 
Have you ever wondered how you can create a superb email campaign? It's not as easy as just sending an email blast out to all your contacts every other day and hope for the best. Today's customers are much more savvy than in the past and need to be treated as such. With that in mind, here are just a few ways you can 