The Goal-Getters Game: Yes, you want to set goals for 2009, but here’s a game to make sure you actually follow through on them

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

The Goal-Getters Game is a variation on some of the ideas we have been playing with in email since Thanksgiving.

So first: ‘Tis the season for New Year’s Resolutions, made in haste and forgotten more hastily.

The Motivational Speaker Circuit, both inside and outside of the real estate world, is always all over the idea of goal-setting. But real changes in you life can only come from goal-achieving.

In our email discussions, I brought up Jerry Seinfeld’s “don’t break the chain” system of goal tracking.

Years ago when Seinfeld was a new television show, Jerry Seinfeld was still a touring comic. At the time, I was hanging around clubs doing open mic nights and trying to learn the ropes. One night I was in the club where Seinfeld was working, and before he went on stage, I saw my chance. I had to ask Seinfeld if he had any tips for a young comic. What he told me was something that would benefit me a lifetime…

He said the way to be a better comic was to create better jokes and the way to create better jokes was to write every day. But his advice was better than that. He had a gem of a leverage technique he used on himself and you can use it to motivate yourself—even when you don’t feel like it.

He revealed a unique calendar system he uses to pressure himself to write. Here’s how it works.

He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker.

He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. “After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain.”

“Don’t break the chain,” he said again for emphasis.

Teri has mentioned that she is already deploying this technique in her real estate practice. It doesn’t matter what your goal is. If you track it by the “don’t break the chain” system, you’ll achieve results.

There’s more. Jeff Brown mentioned the idea that, if you do something for 21 consecutive days, you will have made a habit of it. I don’t know if 21 days is the magic number, but it is a certainty that good habits, once formed, are a powerful goad to good performance.

Here’s the game that Cathleen and I came up with tonight, The Goal-Getters Game.

1. Select one or at most two meaningful goals that you want to achieve — consistently — in the coming year. Cathy picked prospecting for at least one hour each day and exercising for at least one hour each day. I chose setting at least one listing or showing appointment each day and exercising for at least one hour each day.

2. Set up some means of tracking your results Seinfeld style. I built a calendar you can use, or you can try an on-line tool like Don’t Break the Chain! (We may end up building a better social media tool for The Goal-Getters Game.) Either way, track each goal separately. On the calendar, you could make a big “X” using a different colored marker for each goal.

3. Get after your goals. As with the Seinfeld system, your objective is to achieve your goals every single day, without breaking the chain.

4. Want to add another goal? A laudable objective. But: Here’s what you must do: Before you can add another goal to The Goal-Getters Game, you must achieve each one of your current goals for 21 days in a row. If you miss a day on any one goal, the count starts over. Only when you have achieved each one of your current goals for an unbroken chain of 21 days in a row can you add another goal.

If anyone gets to five serious goals that you are achieving every single day, send me your picture. I want to tape it to my bathroom mirror for inspiration.

Any ideas for making this game more fun, more motivating or more likely to succeed?

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