The Top Five Steps for Creating Your Best Self-Storage Year

So here we are at the end of 2018 and getting ready for 2019.

There are a lot of changes going on in the self-storage industry and 2018 was a pivotal year. For many of us it was a tough year for buying, but a good year if you were a seller.

However, what’s important is not what 2018 was for you, but how you are going to create 2019.

Now, I am a firm believer in what most would call “goal setting”, but I really never relate to it as just setting goals. 

It’s like when someone creates a budget. Most people who create budgets look at the past and try to “predict” what the next year will be like.

What if instead of using goal setting, or budget creation as a predictive tool, you could use it as a creative tool?

Did you know you can do that?

You can actually create out of nothing that will be in the world.

Incremental improvements are ok, but quantum leaps and 10x’s over, are possible.

For us and our self-storage company, 2019 is a 10x year. 

Let’s look at the steps for “Creating 2019” as opposed to just setting some goals.

Context for Creating

But before we start, my idea of a good goal, a good thing to strive for, is to aim at something that is within your level of believability, but not something that you could say is a predictable outcome based on last year.

If you have never earned more than $50,000 a year, for example, setting a $1 million income goal for the next year, in most cases that would be beyond believability. $250,000 may be believable, but you have no idea at this moment how you would do it $250,000 would require you to transform into a different kind of person, the kind of person who earns a quarter of a million per year. 

That is a very different person than someone who earns $50,000.

Create a goal that stretches you and requires you to become someone bigger, someone, different than who you currently are. In my opinion, that is something worth giving the next 12 months of your life for.

Strategies, people and resources will begin to open up to you as you begin to transform yourself through the steps listed below. 

I would rather fail at a worthy goal worth the next 12 months of my life (like growing our storage company 10x over), than succeeding at some minor improved results or goals that really doesn’t forward much at all.

 

 

Five Steps for Creating Your Next Year

Here are the steps I/we go through to create the next year. I would take a day, or half a day, go where there are no phones, computers, or people pulling your attention, and go through these steps.

1. Complete the previous year.

I sometimes spend half the day doing this. It is critical. 

You can not create anything until the good, the bad, and the ugly from the previous year are fully flushed out. You don’t want to be creating something big on top of anything that is not complete.

This is why for most people; their future looks like their past. Until we can truly and authentically declare something complete, it drives and controls what is possible.

Here is a way to “complete” the previous year.

1. Look at last years’ goals and without making excuses, or being grandiose, and just state what is so.
   1. Have your last year’s numbers with you. Know your numbers, and without a lot of emotion at this point, state what happened.
      1. Example: “We said we would put five new facilities into service, and we put in two”; or, “we said we would grow our income $100,000 and we grew it $61,533”.
      2. Be exact and ruthlessly truthful.
   2. Next, determine what was the source of the wins or losses. Not to blame, just determine what was the caused the win or loss.
      1. Hint:  As much as you can, YOU be the source of the win or loss. “I didn’t become the person I needed to be to double our income.” If you can be the source of your failures or shortfalls, that means you have the power to alter it. If it is outside you, odds are you have the experience of being a victim. Victims rarely can create breakthroughs because their transformation is dependent on what others may or may not do. Be the source of all your wins and losses.
   3. How do you feel about what happened?
      1. Don’t skip this. Really experience the emotion. For many of this, we try to avoid any “negative” feelings. Really feel. Only then can you move past the year to create something new. 
   4. What do I need to say or do for me to be complete with the year?
      1. If you need to talk to anyone, or do anything to be complete, schedule a date by when it will happen and put it in the calendar.
   5. Finally, declare the year complete.
      1. There may things left to do or say, but you do have the power after the above work to declare the year is complete and not have what happened last year inform you as to what is possible in the upcoming year.

2. Brainstorm the possible goals and opportunities.

1. 1. What would you do in 2019 if you knew you couldn’t fail?
      1. List out the possibilities.
   2. What would a highly successful 2019 look like?
      1. List them out. Let them roll out. Don’t suppress your or anyone else’s ideas at this point.

3. List your non-negotiables for the upcoming year.

1. 1. What are you no longer willing to experience?
      1. For example: “I am not longer willing to take investment money from people who I know will require a lot of time and cause issues.”
      2. What are the things that caused you to be the kind of person you don’t want to be and would totally thwart what you are up to in 2019?

4. List three, no more than five goals for the year.

1. 1. What are the goals that would make the year worth the next 12 months of your life?
   2. What are the goals that would really make a difference?
      1. Examples: “We are putting six new facilities into service;” or “we are creating a $20 million real estate fund and deploy half of it to put seven to ten facilities into service.”
         1. Have them be beyond anything you have previously done, but would make the real difference for your company and your life.

5. Who do you need to be?

1. 1. How do you need to show up to fulfill on the goals?
      1. If you have the right goals, who you have been in the past is not the person who will win at the new game you are creating. 
         1. Examples: “For us to achieve the goals we have set this year; I have to show up as a “Leader of a multi-million-dollar company”. Or “I am someone who can inspire others to exceed their own expatiations of themselves.” Or, “I would need to be a powerful and decisive leader willing to take the risk.”
   2. Don’t skip this step because it can really make the difference. If you begin to reconstitute yourself as someone you don’t know and keep who that person alive every day, you will be listening for and seeing new people, opportunities and recourses to support your transformation into that person. 

Conclusion

Be sure to have your calendar and mark dates in it to benchmark the three to five goals you have created. As Steven Covey said in the Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, begin with the end in mind.

I promise, if you really do the work of these five steps, you will have a big year. 

We are transforming our company in 2019. We now have the basic structures in place to start, but exactly how is still not a known factor at this moment. I just know who I need to be to transform myself into to be the leader of that company. I believe the rest will come by keeping this work alive for myself in 2019 and doing the next right thing, no matter how uncomfortable, new, or challenging that step may be. 

I will keep you posted. 

However, now this is the work I suggest you do. 

Share what those goals may be for you and who you will have to become to achieve them.

Create a big 2019 for yourself and your self-storage business. Dec. 31, 2019, is going to come no matter what.  So make it a year worth giving the next twelve months of your life to.