The mind is a very powerful thing. It influences how you think about a deal and how you feel about a new contact. It can push you to work hard in times of struggle or throw in the towel when faced with adversity. In the world of real estate the right mindset is essential. Investing in real estate is very much like baseball in that you suffer setbacks more than you will have success. A great hitter only gets three hits in every ten at bats. A great investor may only convert one lead out of every fifteen they talk to. If you focus on the setbacks your business will be mired in negativity and self-doubt. Instead of making wholesale changes with how you run your business start by changing your mindset. Here are five tips to help improve your mindset.
- Attitude. The first step you need to take is acknowledging that the world is not against you. There is no grand conspiracy that is keeping you from enjoying success. Life, and business, is filled with ups and downs. You can decide if you would rather focus on your accomplishments or your defeats. With every person you meet and every property you look at you need to go into them with the right attitude. Instead of saying that someone will never work with you or you have no chance at getting a property think about it positively. There are many successful connections and deals made every day. By focusing on the positives your mind will find ways to figure problems out rather than to accept failure. It sounds like a cliché but if you think you will do something you probably will. Everything in business starts with the right attitude.
- Visualize Success. Some of the most successful athletes attribute their success to positive visualization. As a golfer lines up an important shot they play out their ideal scenario before taking action. A pitcher visualizes where they want to throw the next pitch before they actually do it. As a real estate investor you can do the same thing. Before you take any action play the process out in your head. Start by thinking about what your goal is for the given action. There should be no doubt as to what your main objective is and how you are going to achieve it. From there think about every scenario and how you will conquer anything that comes your way. Think about that feeling of success after closing a big deal or getting a seller to sign a sales contract. By feeling and visualizing success you are much more likely to achieve it.
- Accountability. Most people want to be happy and enjoy success. They may even visualize it and work hard to achieve it. However when things don’t go their way it is human nature to jump ship and become dejected. They best way to combat this is by holding yourself accountable for everything you do. Don’t be afraid to write down exactly what you want and how you plan on achieving it. If things don’t go your way figure out exactly what happened. Did you work as hard as you possibly can? Was there a problem that you didn’t try hard enough to fix? Were you as focused as you needed to be? Whatever the reason is look for solutions rather than make excuses. One of the things that make real estate so great is that anyone can be successful. You have the same chance at getting an offer accepted as a ten year real estate vet in your area. If things don’t go your way you are the only one to blame. By holding yourself accountable you can figure out what went wrong and quickly move on instead of keeping everything inside.
- Action Over Plans. Planning and preparation is useless without action. There is nothing wrong with making a plan for whatever you want to achieve. However too often we are focus more on the plan rather than the action. By changing your mindset to act rather than plan you will be much more successful. If you focus on what you want you can figure out the steps to get there as you go. This doesn’t mean you should blindly jump into something without a little research. But in most cases after you start you will find that things don’t always go according to script. You can always adjust to actions once you start. If you don’t begin somewhere your mind will end up getting in your way.
- Understand Why. Why are you in the real estate business? Are you doing this to rid yourself of debt? Do you want a better future for yourself and your family? Do you want to spend more time with your spouse? There are literally dozens of different reasons based on the individual investor. By knowing exactly what motivates you and drives you every day it will inherently push you to work harder. When you are tired and ready to throw in the towel think about why you are doing this in the first place. This should give you a little bit of peace of mind and inspire you.
Everyone around you will feel a positive attitude and mindset. On the flip side, a negative mindset will pull you down with everything you do. In when you may be struggling or searching for answers think about changing your mindset over changing your business.
