The call came in after hours from a frustrated advisor. Jason said to me, "I set my goals every year, yet I never truly achieve them. I know that I am falling short of my potential." It is a start of a New Year and Jason was putting together his business plan for the New Year. This is a problem that affects many advisors, managers and home office employees.

When a New Year begins you are filled with hope. The New Year signifies new beginnings, new opportunities and a brand new start. You can do things differently this year. January begins and you are filled with enthusiasm and energy, but then months go by and you are disappointed by your results.

So what happens? Where do most sale people get off track?

If there is one thing that I have learned about achieving success from my coaching practice it is this: All success is mental. Success starts as a mental process and everything that you think will flow from there. Your mental framework will impact the way you react to good and bad situations. It will impact how resilient you will be in the current marketplace and it will impact what you can actually achieve.

You have to believe before you can achieve. You must be able to see it in advance in order to accomplish it. You have to feel it with tremendous emotion. You must be very clear about it your success – never vague. You have to know exactly what success will look like. Be specific about your goals and write them down and review them often.

If last year fell short of your expectations I would like to give you a dose of reality. You are smart enough to accomplish whatever you want. You are creative enough to find new solutions to problems that you haven't been able to solve yet. You are talented enough to create and implement a new business plan in the New Year that will work for you.

You have got to know that it will happen. Your success has feel so real to you that you experience your success mentally before you actually achieve it.

You have to expect it – really expect it. When you go to get your car in the morning before work you expect it to be where you parked it the night before. Right? You would be surprised if it wasn't there. (That is unless you parked your car in some of the neighborhoods that I rented apartments in when I was in college many years ago -but that is another story) You don't even think about it – you just assume the car will be there.

It is the same with your business goals. You need to expect them to be achieved at that level of knowing. You expect and you don't even think about it. You need to feel the success and the ease of cash flow. You need to see in advance all of the help you will give your clients. You need to know all of the benefits that you will be providing to your clients. You are almost taking your success for granted. It is a foregone conclusion.

This is what I suggested to Jason to get himself back on track:

Start the New Year with the mental attitude that he is already a success.
Decide and commit to doing things differently
Look for the positive in every interaction with everyone and in every situation
Always be action oriented
Be determined
Check your progress often
Make necessary course corrections
Expect goals to be achieved.
Make the New Year everything that you want it to be.

Good luck to you on your journey to success.