When you don't hit the goals you set for your property management business, it's easy to fall into frustration, self-doubt, or the feeling that the year was a failure… but what if you're looking at it the wrong way?

In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull break down why entrepreneurs often focus on the gap between their goals and results instead of the gain they actually made.

They share how to process the disappointment of missed targets, how to recognize the real progress you achieved, and why your biggest breakthroughs often come after a year that felt like a setback. They also discuss the difference between a default future and a created future, why most business owners stay stuck repeating the same results every year, and practical mindset and planning strategies to help you reset, regain momentum, and build a stronger year ahead.

You'll Learn

(00:50) Setting and Achieving Goals

(08:03) Recognizing Progress and Wins

(13:36) Creating a Positive Future

(17:17) Rewiring Your Mindset for Success

Quotables

"There's really only one thing you can do with a feeling, and that is to feel it."

"Your default future for 2026 is your 2025, which was probably also similar to your 2024."

"IFocus on the progress that you had made instead of that gap between, I didn't make it to where I wanted to be."

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

Transcript

Jason Hull (00:00)

All right, here we go in five, four, three, two, one. We are Jason and Sarah Hull, the owners of DoorGrow, the world's leading and most comprehensive coaching and consulting firm for long-term residential property management entrepreneurs. For over a decade and a half, we have brought innovative strategies and optimization to the property management industry. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses.

We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. Now, let's get into the show. All right, so the topic we decided to chat about today is...

Oh, okay. So she was talking with one of our clients named Jay and he was. Oh, I remember now. Okay. Then what is it? We were, we were going to talk.

in 2025. Yeah, because, know, this is a common theme for entrepreneurs. We have big goals. There's a book about this. There's a book called The Gap and the Gain. And the idea is we're really good at looking at this future that we want to create. We're visionaries. We can see and create the future in a lot of instances. But sometimes our eyes are bigger than our stomach. Sometimes we see this big picture of the future we could create and we don't we don't achieve it.

And sometimes our goals are just too big for us and we don't, we grow, we learn, but we fail or we just learn as I call it. And so if we don't achieve these goals, it's really easy to get discouraged. It's really easy to beat ourselves up. It's really easy to maybe think we're not enough or put ourselves down. And so a lot of you just wrapped up 2025. We're recording this in January. This will go live a little bit later, but

You may be thinking, man, 2025 was not the year that I wanted it to be. I really wanted it to be bigger. It's just, I didn't achieve what I was hoping to. I got derailed. There were so many things that got in the way. So we're going to chat about that a bit today. How do we get past that hurdle? First of the belief part of like feeling like putting ourselves down or thinking we should do better. And then how do we actually set goals and

big dreams and hit those targets. And how do we have a better 2026 than our 2025 or a 2024 or a 2023? Maybe you haven't been making progress over the last several years. So we'll talk about that. Where should we start? Okay. I'm dying. So one of the things that I think is really easy for us to do, especially as business owners is to

focus on, I set this goal, I wanted to be here, I fell short of it somehow, in some way, and for some reason. And it could be a multitude of reasons. My team quit, the market shifted, all the clients sold, some crazy competitor came in and started stealing on clients, whatever it might be. So if you didn't hit the goal for whatever reason it is,

I think it's so easy to just kind of dwell on that and to get caught up in the, I didn't do it. And it's that disappointment. It's a little bit disheartening. It's, you know, you're just feeling bound out that I was hoping I would be here. I didn't know how it was going to happen, but I just had faith and did what I could do and man, I missed it. So.

One of the things that is really good, and it is mentioned in the Gatlin game, is instead of focusing on, this is the goal that I had and I fell short of it somehow. Look to the beginning and look at all the progress that you have made. Yeah, look at the game. Right. So instead of saying, I'll just give you an easy example. If you started the year 2025,

with 100 doors and you said, all right, I wanted to add another 100 doors. So at the end of the year, I would be at 200. And you didn't get to 200. Maybe you added some, you lost some, you added some, you lost some, you're in that, you know, kind of up and down cycle. And by the end of the year, you ended up at 145. So lots of us would look at that and go, wow, I wanted to be at 200 and I'm only at 145. Wow, I fell so short.

It's not even like, ⁓ I almost hit it. We were so close. That's pretty far short. Yeah. So it's very easy for us to just get trapped in this cycle of feeling badly for ourselves. And for some of us, maybe many of us, to be a little bit hard on yourself and go, you know, was it me? What did I do wrong? What could I have done better? Did I make some mistakes? Where did I mess this up?

Was I not the leader that I needed to be for my team? Did my clients not like working with our team? Are my processes not good enough? Are my prices not good enough? What is it? And it's so easy to go internal with that. And instead of looking and then concentrating so much on that, first, I feel like you do need to acknowledge it. You don't need to feel it for long time.

But it is important to acknowledge, hey, I'm feeling disappointed. I'm feeling disheartened. Maybe I'm feeling like, I kind of got the wind knocked out of me a little bit and I just wasn't expecting to be here. I really thought we were going to pull it together. I thought this was going to be our year. So it's important to at least acknowledge the feeling that you're having.

but then don't dwell on it. Don't get stuck in feeling badly for too long. So just identify whatever feeling it is that you have. Allow yourself to say, it's okay that I feel like this. And then you have to get yourself out of that loop. So an easy way to get out of that loop is to go, right, well, I did add 45 doors, right? So that's progress.

I didn't end up with less than 100 doors. So I didn't start with 100 and then at the end of the year, now I only have 70. Right? So you still did make some progress, even though it isn't the progress that you wanted, you still made some progress. But what else happened? Because a lot of us just look at the KPIs and metrics that are associated with the goal itself that we had set, which would be doors. what else had happened in the year?

Did you make changes to your team? Did you make changes to a system? Did you make changes to processes? Did you either expand into a new market or change your pricing? Did you shift things dramatically inside the business that would count as progress even though it didn't directly yet lead to doors? Did you develop yourself as a leader?

huge progress and many people never even get to do that. So perhaps you didn't get the 200 doors that you wanted. Now you're not at 200, you're only at 145. But if you can say, all right, well, I made shifts to my team. I let things go that needed to be let go. I brought people in that needed to be brought in. maybe shifted people around. implemented a new software. I started working with a new coach.

I learned a new growth strategy. made new connections. I grew myself as a leader. I grew myself personally. There was some growth and some learning and some personal development there. Does that directly equate to doors? Yes. It's just that it didn't happen yet. So it will. It just didn't happen yet. So 2026 might be the year.

that all of that work and all of that growth and that foundation building, 2026 might now be the year that allows you to have that growth and expansion that now you're ready for because of the shifts that you had made the prior year. So focus on the progress that you had made instead of that gap between, I didn't make it to where I wanted to be. Love it.

DGS 331: From Missed Goals to Momentum