There is a direct correlation between how well you hold yourself accountable and the results that you achieve. The best part of the mortgage industry is you’re only accountable to yourself and your own goals and you only have 1 person to blame if you don’t hit those goals.
The First Step In Personal Accountability
Identify why you want to achieve the goal
I don’t mean you say “I want to do more loans to make more money.” That isn’t the real “why.” If your goal is to do more loans, and by doing that you’ll make more money the result is you make more money but that’s not the reason. The reason might be “if I close more loans I’ll feel comfortable and not stressed living paycheck to paycheck” it might be because you want to pay for your kids college, it might be so you can buy a house, or because you love to win and feel a sense accomplishment.
When you know your real “why” you can put in perspective how important the goal is. It is also the best motivator when you need to push through a tough spot. If your why is your kids college and you have one of those days that just beats you down and you say I’m going home and I’ll deal with this tomorrow. Think about your why and your kids college and it will be much easier to do what you know you should do.
Step 2 In Personal Accountability
Determine your when
You need to set yourself specific due dates and exactly when you’ll have something done. Like we talked about in the big ideas small steps piece I did having the goal isn’t as important as all the little things it takes to reach the goal. But as important as the small steps are having a clearly defined timeline to meet those steps is what will keep you on track. This also forces you out of your comfort zone and makes you do things that you normally wouldn’t do.
Your gut instinct on when you can achieve something by is usually right. It’s that other part of our brain that thinks “reasonably” or makes excuses that ends up causing delays and ultimately why we either don’t achieve our goals or we give up on them. Listen to your gut, stick to it ,and don’t quit until you’ve reached it.
Step 3 In Personal Accountability
Force yourself to have laser focus
Everyday is full of distractions, email, phone calls, meetings, the list goes on and on. These are all the things that take us away from our goals. If you have a goal that you really want, you’ve established your “why” and your “when” then don’t let anything pull you away from that. You made that goal for a reason, you did it because that was the most important thing you could come up with when you were planning then why would you let things you don’t really want take you away from that?
The reason we do that is because we naturally want instant gratification and we are afraid that if we don’t do something that’s right in front of us it will somehow lose it forever. The reality of it is anything that gives you instant gratification probably isn’t worth having anyway. You get an email from a client and you respond in 2 minutes and stop working on one of your goals. That client will be there 30 minutes later and if they aren’t they weren’t your client anyway. We’re afraid of losing the easy things and we’re not brave enough to leave those alone for something bigger. Be brave don’t be afraid and you’ll be surprised at the results you have.
The Overall Theme Of Accountability
Be passionate
The only way to look yourself in the mirror and truly hold yourself accountable is if you’re passionate about what you’re doing and what your goal is. Too many times people have goals that are not really “their” goals. They are the goals they think they should have because of the job they have but it’s not really their goal. If you look at your goals and the steps you planned out to take and you’re not excited about it. Then you need to walk away and find a new goal. If you’re not passionate about it you’ll never be excited and if you’re never excited you’ll never hold yourself to the standard required to really reach your full potential.
Do it with passion or don’t do it at all.
Raulon Van Tassell
Asking the “why” questions really got me thinking… I appreciate that exercise. Also, being passionate is something that seems to come pretty naturally – in fact I seem to have to tone things down a bit so that I can achieve the “laser focus” part. Determining when, forcing laser focus, and being passionate (specifically about accountability) will be great points for me when applied.