More sales, more listings, more money — your real estate career is taking off. You should feel on top of the world, but instead, you find yourself feeling overworked and worried about all the little responsibilities that go along with higher production.
It’s critical to address this issue because it’s often used as an excuse not to be successful. A lot of agents start to become successful, and ultimately they backslide because they think they can’t handle the stress.
We recently discussed this topic in a two-part series on our radio program, “Real Estate Coaching Radio.” We’d urge you to listen to the episodes below and read along in this article as we go through some practical solutions for you step by step:
Make Money, Not Excuses! (Part 1)
Make Money, Not Excuses! (Part 2)
OK, so let’s work on some solutions. They begin with recognizing that your actions and reactions to your situation are entirely the product of the way you think and feel about them.
The problem is a lot of your thoughts, feelings and beliefs about real estate are formed initially when you’re just starting out, and many agents never re-examine these mental pictures of themselves or their career as they grow and change.
So, let’s take this opportunity to examine and learn with these 11 tips:
1. Learn to manage stress
Embrace the fact that the only solution is to learn how to handle the stress you feel. It’s not going away.
Doing fewer deals will mean you’re helping fewer people, which will make you less money. Do you feel more or less stressed with a higher income?
2. Where does stress come from?
It comes from a lack of control and lack of believing you can handle it. Replace the thoughts of being overwhelmed, busy and unable with affirmations:
- “I’m confident and competent and surrounded by abundance. I can handle my business with grace.”
- “I’m the best way to help these people accomplish their goals. When I help more people, the reward I receive is profit.”
- “When you connect to the silence within you, that is when you can make sense of the disturbance going on around you.” (A helpful quote by Stephen Richards.)
3. Don’t worry about the future and past
This preoccupation prevents you from being in the moment. What you do today affects the future. Take care of today, and your future will pay you back for your efforts.
We say, “Thank you, past Tim and Julie,” when we recognize the results of our former efforts. Work on building up your reservoir of today’s efforts.
4. Stay in your 3-foot world
When interviewed on “60 Minutes,” Navy SEAL Mark Owen outlined a clear picture of what this means: “I found myself frozen on a 300-foot cliff. I couldn’t go up, and I couldn’t go down. My strength was beginning to drain.”
“The instructor swung over to me attached to his climbing rope and told me something that has impacted every part of my life. ‘Find your 3-foot world.’ He said.
“From that moment, I focused fully on the cliff face before me, neither up nor down, not on what I couldn’t reach nor to where I couldn’t step. Not on fear, nor tiredness — only on the task at hand. It was my 3-foot world and the only part of my world I had control over.”
Instead of being overcome by fear about things you cannot and will not control or change, focus on what you can change, and move forward from there.
5. Have simple, daily minimum standards
Make sure those standards revolve around dollar-productive activities. If it doesn’t lead to a paycheck — stop doing it.
6. Focusing on skills instead of schemes
A skill-based business always has a better net profit, a more confident agent at the wheel and better long-term success. Schemes come and go. Skills give you freedom.
7. Quit comparing yourself to others
Who cares what other agents are doing? Are they going to list or buy with you? Base your daily thoughts and actions on what matters to you. Worrying about other agents is scarcity-minded. Taking action to meet or exceed your goals is abundance-minded.
8. Stick to your focus: Follow one course until you are successful
Be the best at the things that make you money in real estate. Don’t dabble or sample.
9. Surround yourself with roses and eliminate roaches
Control your mind, body and wallet. If you have negative influences, remove them immediately.
10. Automate and systematize your business
This system lets you handle your business more efficiently. Consider hiring a transaction coordinator if you don’t already have one. Make sure you’re using prequalification scripts every time so you work only with people who actually will buy and sell.
11. Implement an “ideal daily schedule”
Put today’s points into action by adopting affirmations that replace your thoughts of stress, and focus on the things that matter. You can handle more than you think.
Following these tips should allow you to let go of some of your day-to-day baggage. Hopefully, with this lighter load, you should be able to stop making excuses and start making more money.
Tim and Julie Harris have over 20 years’ experience in real estate. Learn more about their real estate coaching and training programs at timandjulieharris.com, or tune in to Real Estate Coaching Radio every weekday at realestatecoachingradio.com.
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