Motivate your team by turning goals into habits

Everyone who answered “great! never better!”, you can leave the room.

Okay everyone else (I’m guessing 85% of us?), let’s chat.

First of all, no shame! Life has a way of getting in the way of good intentions. Of my two resolutions, one has been fulfilled out of pure luck and one was extremely unfulfilled until recently.

So here’s what I’ve learned after countless attempts to upgrade my life through sheer willpower: take it easy.

No, I’m not letting myself (or you) off the hook quite yet. But I will suggest slowing down a bit.

Goals are great, but they have to be achievable and maintainable if they’re going to be effective.

You can’t motivate yourself or motivate your team with pie-in-the-sky goals that have no basis in reality or path to realization.

Here are a few reasons why it might be time to rethink the way you’re going after your goals.

Burnout

A common mistake people make when setting goals is good intentions. You want to be healthy so you cut out all sugar, flour, caffeine and dairy and then wonder why your life is a grey, meaningless fog. You want to get fit so you schedule yourself to go to the gym five times a week. You want to wake up earlier so you move your alarm from 7.45am to 6am.

You’re trying to do too much, too soon and it’s a recipe for disappointment. Huge changes rarely stick. You’re setting yourself up for failure! Slowing down and taking things step by step will have a huge impact on your ability to stick with the changes, and your self-esteem.

For example, if you’re trying to be healthier, try cutting back to one cup of coffee a day (or back to two cups – baby-steps). Stick with that for a month or two, until it’s your new normal. Then cut back to half a cup. Again, stay with that for a while before moving on to the next step. Or maybe you decide to stay there! The point is, give yourself a fighting chance.

How to apply this to your business

It’s easy to throw out a random goal to your team and tell them to start shooting for the stars. Maybe you want to increase retail sales in your spa. Great! Set a number that you want your team to reach each week or month, but make it one that they’ll conceivably be able to hit.

Setting impossible targets only frustrates your team, makes you look out of touch, and puts everyone off the whole idea.

Use concrete suggestions to reach your goal. Don’t just tell your staff that they need to make 10% more per in retail sales each month. Choose one thing that you want them to do each day – like building 5 extra minutes to one client’s appointment to educate them about products – and make it the new normal. Motivate your team by introducing it as a new task to incorporate in their job. Asking them to hit a percentage is meaningless; asking them to start a new habit is not.

Ideal world syndrome

Setting goals that don’t quite align with the real world is a trap. My second resolution: meditating. I wanted to set aside 10 minutes of my day to meditate, so I set myself the goal to meditate every day when I woke up. It seemed like something a good, healthy person would do. However, I was (for no good reason!) imagining a world in which I don’t roll out of bed 15 minutes before I have to leave and run around my house like a crazy person getting ready.

My rigid (read: frantic) morning schedule didn’t leave any time for 10 minutes of meditation, and yet somehow I’d imagined that I would just – fit it in, somehow. But that’s not how it works! If you’re imagining your goals in some utopian future where you have all the free time in the world, you’re (again) setting yourself up for failure. Be kind. Set yourself up for success!

The meditation solution was easy – just do it at night instead of the morning. It’s much easier for me to take a few minutes away from the book I’m reading than it is to cut into my sleep. If I’d been thinking about my resolutions in terms of the actual life I lead, flaws and all, I would have seen that right away.

So how can you make your goals easier? It will depend on the goal, of course, but the most important part is that you be honest with yourself.

How to apply this to your business

It’s hard to emphasize how sneaky this problem is. Seeing the future through rose-tinted glasses is so easy to do! Future you has fixed those bad habits…somehow. So, when you’re making resolutions or setting goals, think about your weaknesses.

Don’t be too hard on yourself. Just take an honest, non-judgmental look at your current habits. You have to know what you’re working with before you can get anywhere.

Say you want to increase the number of people who re-book with you. If you’re not already using Timely’s email and SMS marketing capabilities, that means spending a bit more time with each customer after their appointment to talk with them, find out what else they might need done, recommend when their follow-up should be and find a time that works for both of you.

Is that honestly something you have time for in your schedule? Or are you setting this goal in the assumption that the towels will magically clean themselves, the studio will re-set itself and the next client won’t mind waiting while you see the first one out? If you’re discounting the reality of your current working habits, you’ll have a much harder time reaching your new goal, no matter how good your intentions are.

Rewards

The millennial generation has a reputation for wanting constant validation — trophies for participation, and all that. I won’t lie, I’ve gotten a few participation ribbons. But I’m going to argue in favor of some rewards when you’re pushing yourself towards new goals and new habits.

We often punish ourselves for failing at a resolution, without rewarding ourselves when we succeed. This turns the entire thing into a swamp of negativity.

My reward for meditating (at night, once I figured out that was key) varies, and it’s usually small. Sometimes it’s as little as switching up my toenail polish or having a G&T while I catch up on Game of Thrones. The little rewards turned my meditation into a mood-booster. I wanted to keep going not just to fulfill my resolution but because I anticipated the feeling of pride I’d get after another day in a row of remembering to meditate.

How to apply this to your business

If you want your staff to go above and beyond in their jobs, why not incentivize it? Of course you don’t have to reward people for doing their jobs, but if you’re asking them to stretch themselves or take on something new, refusing acknowledging their accomplishments can be demoralizing.

You tell your staff when they’ve messed up, right? So why not tell them when they’ve made you proud? Here are some ideas for how to motivate your team instead of harassing them:

• Make it a competition: set up rewards for the person who books the most new clients in a month, or who sells the most products each week. Or give a little reward to each staff member who hits a weekly or monthly target.
• Share the client love: If you’re asking your staff to up the client service, let them know what the results are. Take the time to share reviews, emails, verbal praise and the like with your team. Your front of house person might not be personally involved in cutting hair or adjusting spines, but they still contributed to the overall client experience and should be acknowledged.
• Treat yourself: If you have a record-breaking month, throw your staff a party after-hours. The only downside to this is that they keep breaking records – you might have to think of a new reward!

Goals don’t have to be pipe dreams. They can be concrete and reachable. In fact, they should be!

Focus on setting realistic goals, taking baby steps, and being kind to yourself (and your team) along the way.

You’ll make some amazing progress. And you’ll do it by forming new daily habits, not by suddenly morphing into a new, shinier version of yourself.

I think my next goal will be getting up earlier. I’ll try five minutes earlier each week and see how I go. Hopefully I’ll have a new habit to brag about six months from now. How about you? Is it time for a mid-year resolution?