With a new year comes fresh opportunities and a renewed sense of energy to attain your business goals. But like many resolutions, simply setting a vague, lofty goal and crossing your fingers until the end of the year won’t get you any closer to reaching new career milestones.

You can still set ambitious goals for yourself and your real estate practise this year. But take the time to think your goals through and create a structure that makes it easier to manage your targets and track your progress along the way. One of the best ways to set ambitious yet achievable goals is with the SMART system. Each letter in the acronym helps to guide your goal-setting in a certain way.

Specific

State your goal in as much detail as possible. This way your efforts will be targeted, allowing you to hone in on a certain area of improvement. Use the 5 Ws (who, what, where, when, why) to help specify your goal.

Measurable

Without a way to measure your goal, it’ll be difficult to determine whether your efforts are working and more importantly, when you’ve actually achieved your target. This may mean tweaking the goal itself or adding a number, whether a percentage or value.

Actionable

What actions will you take in order to achieve your goal? The target you set should be something that you can take steps towards achieving. This is also a good time to identify any obstacles that might stand in your way and how you’ll overcome them.

Realistic

You can still aim high, but be reasonable with your expectations. Take a look at your prior performance as well as upcoming time and financial resources. Do a few calculations to figure out what’s within the realm of possibility but will also challenge your abilities.

Time-specific

Set yourself a date or deadline for achieving the goals you’ve set. It might not take you the entire calendar year to reach your goal. You might create weekly or monthly numbers to target along the way. Or perhaps you’ll set a mid-year goal then re-evaluate what your end-of-year goal should be.

Here are a few goals with a SMART spin:

• Improve seller leads might become
• Improve seller leads generated by 20% by May 31st
• Increase community presence might become
• Make ten new community connections in my farm area by March 1st
• Keep in touch with past clients, which might become Reach out to three former clients by phone or email every month