Daily Habits Beat Big Goals

We trade loud goals for quiet systems and show how daily micro choices make growth inevitable. Simple checklists, energy buffers, and honest reviews help property managers and founders move from motivation to repeatable results.

• shifting from outcome targets to input habits
• choosing daily vs weekly cadence to fit personality
• breaking growth goals into calls, appraisals, letters
• protecting energy with buffers and white space
• using five-item task checkers to reduce friction
• running weekly and monthly reviews to iterate
• setting quarterly checks instead of constant outcomes
• starting any day and avoiding New Year clichés

If you are interested in becoming a PMC Learning Lab member, just send me a DM or reach out so I can send you through the info

PM COLLECTIVE - GUIDE AND SHAPE AN ENJOYABLE FUTURE

We believe in making industry-leading education and support accessible to everyone. Our community is packed with free resources, expert insights, and innovative training designed to help business owners, property managers, and BDMs thrive.

This podcast is sponsored by Inspection Express. 

Inspection Express and Paperless Office is the leader in innovative, time saving property Inspection Software.

Property Management Software | Inspection Express & Paperless Office (ipropertyexpress.com)

Chapters

• 1:02 Why Goals Fail Without Habits
• 1:40 Micro Choices Over Vision Boards
• 2:34 Present Focus Beats Future Fantasy
• 3:31 Systems Win When Motivation Fades
• 4:47 Reflecting On Last Year Honestly
• 5:56 Monthly Plans Vs Daily Checklists
• 6:49 Personality Fit For Habit Cadence
• 7:29 Consistency As The First Habit
• 8:21 Break Goals Into Daily Inputs
• 9:13 Protecting Energy And White Space
• 10:17 Weekly Review And Iteration
• 11:28 Five-Item Daily Task Checker
• 11:55 Join PMC Or DM For Templates
• 12:00 Quarterly Check-Ins Over Outcomes
• 12:18 Close With One-Day-At-A-Time
• 12:30 Embrace Boring Systems For Wins
• 12:47 Start Anytime With Small Steps

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:31

So we're going to talk about goals today and why most people fail on their goals. And that's because they abandon the daily habits that would have made those goals inevitable. And we see it over and over again in property management and in business ownership. And what we find is that we as humans love a fresh goal. We love our new planners, our new years, our new identities. And we see it so much at the start of the year on our socials. The goals are really, really loud, but the habits are generally very, very quiet. And I want to talk about those micro choices that we are making on a daily basis, which actually matter more than the goal setting. And this is why a task checker or a habit tracker is going to beat that vision board every day of the week. It's really important that when we reflect on the previous year, that we are taking into account the habits that we ignored in 2025 and focusing on them for the new year. So the first thing to really start reflecting on is that goals are very future focused and the habits live in the present. So the problem is we don't live in the future. We live on a random Tuesday at 447 and the inbox is on fire and our lives are feeling quite chaotic. And so when we set goals, we set them like, you know, we want to grow by 100 properties, we want more balance, we want better business, we want to go to Pilates three times a week. Habits sound more like did I do the thing today? Did I get through my to-do list? And did I check off those micro choices for the day? What we also find is that goals are relying on motivation, but habits are really relying on that system. And that's why the system is so important to get right, because that is going to help us get to the goals anyway. What we also find is that motivation is also very unreliable. So we are going to get days where we are not feeling 100%, especially in property management. We find that we can have days where we're quite tired, life is very loud, we've got extra problems that day or that week. And that's why having a task checker or a habit checker, habit tracker, sorry, helps remove the emotion because it is just a checklist. It is just a system that we need to get through instead of focusing on what that future goal is. So we need to start looking at our lifestyle choices and not shaping, not allowing our life to shape those big decisions, but understanding that those big decisions are shaped by those tiny ones that we've got on repeat, whether it's daily or weekly or even Monday. We probably find that we don't necessarily focus on those micro choices as much as we should. And we focus on those goals because goals are quite exciting, but micro choices are sort of quite boring. You know, do this tick, do that tick. And that's probably why we don't really focus on it as much. And that's the reason why we need to again is because it's going to help us reach those goals in the first place. So what we want to do is reflect very much without any guilt and just honesty on what the last 12 months have looked like and what we have neglected. I have found personally for me, I have been pretty good with staying on track in 2025 with a lot of my personal, my monthly goals, my monthly plans, whether it was my monthly skin reset that I was doing or my nutrition reset or my exercise. Like I was pretty good on that, which but it was mainly on a monthly basis. What I find that I'm actually not as good at is sometimes those daily or weekly checks. So I probably need to be focused for me more on a daily to-do list or daily micro choices as opposed to that monthly one. I just for me find that that month is just a little bit too far out. And by the time I get to that month, I have not done what I meant to, and then I just roll it over to the next month, and before you know it, it's three months past. So for me and my personality, what I find is that I am someone who does things at the last minute. So what can happen is I might have a monthly goal, but I won't do anything for the month, and then last minute I'll try and squash it all in, so which is not really great. So I'm better off with those daily tasks or those daily micro choices because at least I will cram it whatever I need to in on a daily, if that makes sense. So for me, that's something that I've recognised that I need to be better at. And so for me, daily is what actually will work. But it's just a good idea just to reflect on how you work. Are you someone who is very good at the daily but not at the monthly, or like me, where you're not very good at the daily, but you're fine at the monthly. Hopefully, I don't think I repeated that, but you get what I mean. So the first habit that we need to really reflect on is that consistency. So, not those big launches, those big goals, I want 50 new managements this month, not those massive marketing plans, but just that regular calm to-do list that you do on a daily or on a weekly. The real simplicity of it is really, really important. So if we use the managements as an example, instead of focusing on 50 new managements, just going back to a weekly or a daily, whatever suits your personality, of I need to do this many appraisals or even step it back another step further, which is how many, you know, phone calls do I need to make, how many letterbox drops do I need to do? What is that daily to-do list? And that small consistency is what's actually going to help you, like I said, reach those goals in the first place. The second habit is very much protecting your energy, and we can always brush this off as being something very fluffy, but it's not. So when we find that we say yes to everything, we're going to find that there's going to be leakages in some areas of our lives. So I am someone who does say yes a lot. So one of my goals might be to say no to certain things. We can also find that when we don't protect our energy, we're not leaving ourselves with any white space in our days. We might not have any buffers between meetings, which is something that I'm terrible for. So I need to leave more of a buffer. It might be something that I hear a lot of people not starting their appointments till 10 o'clock in the morning instead of trying to cram more and more in. So that's something that might be really important as one of those micro choices on a daily. Where am I going to put my white space? And where, and can I start putting a buffer between my meetings as well? So that's something that would be a fantastic micro choice goal to put into your habit tracker. And the third reflection is very much about reflection and looking at what worked and what hasn't worked. And so a micro choice might be at the end of the week or at the end of the month to actually have a look at your habit tracker or your task template or task tracker to see what did you uh what were you successful doing and what weren't you, what do you need to keep repeating with and what do you need to stop. So hopefully those ideas helps you understand what you need to focus on when you are setting those goals. So what we're going to recommend and what I recommend to my members of the PMC Learning Lab is to create those short daily task checkers, maybe five things max. We don't want to focus on the outcomes, we just want to be focusing on the inputs. So, for example, it will be: did I move my body today? Did I follow up with one person? Did I protect one boundary? Did I learn something small? Did I listen to one podcast? You don't need a whole new identity. You don't need to go and create this whole new personality. You just need a container of tasks that and micro choices that you are going to do regularly. And you need to just then trust the process that if you do those, you are going to get those big goals. And maybe you set those goals more as a quarterly or a six-monthly check-in to see how you're going. And so you can tweak those micro choices as well. So, what I want to leave you with today is just that reminder to stop chasing those goals, which are very much in the future and not in the present. I want you to focus on those micro choices, and I want you to repeat them every day and constantly reflect what you need to change and what you need to tweak. And don't get concerned or feel that it is boring because I think that the systems is like we said before, it's unemotional, it's going to help you stay on track and it's going to help you get to those big goals. And it's something that you can start today or you can start in February or March. It doesn't have to be the first of January because I personally don't like the cliche of it, but it's something that you you can start, like I said, on a daily, you can start it on Monday, you can start it on Thursday because you are focusing on daily micro choices and not those big audacious goals. So I hope that helps. If you are one of the PMC members, it's something that we have focused on in our online catch-ups. And we've got templates that the group will use to stay on track. If you are interested in becoming a PMC Learning Lab member, just send me a DM or reach out so I can send you through the info. Otherwise, enjoy your day. And if nothing more, why don't you just set up that to do list with those good choices that you can make today and take it one day at a time.