As the 2014 leans into its last month of operation,  “finishing strong” was the anthem of my sales days, as every account in December promised a lucrative year-end bonus with each customer signature.

Sales organizations tend to thrive with frenetic activity as the calendar year comes to a close. Upon reflection, two things drive people’s ability to celebrate strong results with every challenging year: targets and deadlines. This seems simple, but thinking and doing can often contradict each other, as well-planned work and life goals get bombarded with other priorities that distract from your ultimate success measure.??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Wrapping up a year, has an enhanced sense of achievement and people tend to focus with greater precision as they review their year-end performance plan and realize four of the five key goals are incomplete. So what gets in the way? In the iconic 1983 movie The Big Chill, the William Hurt character utters the phrase, “I’m not into the completion thing”, as he justifies his aimless existence. Perhaps that is simply the answer. Some people are just not into the “completion thing”. Without a target or a deadline, one can revel in their sense of ‘un-accomplishment’. If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.

As a manager, one can tolerate the occasional slip in performance, but as a manager, you have a core duty to help staff commit to their time bound goals and remove obstacles that inhibit staff from those achievements. In Aaron McDaniel’s Insightful Leadership article from June 2013, he suggests the number one role of successful managers is their ability to remove obstacles that inhibit employee success Clear Concept founder Ann Gomez has done extensive research with indisputable evidence that supports the notion that deadlines drive productivity. Applying this principle to the holiday season will help in your planning of shopping, house decorating and even wrapping gifts. Let me demonstrate. As a male, I have committed to wrapping all the gifts for family and friends by 9:00 p.m. December 24th.

There is one more benefit of setting deadlines that will contribute greatly to your holiday season. Many of you will attend a New Year’s party, where you will connect with long forgotten friends. With every conversation you will discover that these people were important to your life and just drifted away as mortgages and raising children got in the way of staying connected. After a few drinks the inevitable phrase. “We must get together soon” will be expressed. Though the sincerity of the suggestion is pure, the chance of it happening is not very strong. Press your friends to find a date. As each of you stumble to locate their phone devices, drinks may spill on the host’s hardwood floors. After you wipe the floor with your hors d’oeuvre napkin, scroll down your calendar app for open dates. That simple action will change the cliché to a commitment. Both parties will inevitably be thankful for this one simple gesture of establishing the target.

Happy holidays, and enjoy your wel- deserved break with close family and friends and fill your calendar with personal commitments to honour those cherished connections.