Motivation Under Pressure

As I was listening to the Real Estate Guys Radio Podcast a few days ago, Robert Helms the show’s host, said something that has really stuck with me over the last few days. “When God gives you a gift, he wraps it up in a problem, the bigger the gift, the bigger the problem.” The quote is from the show put on I-tunes on 7/8/08. Remember, even if you don’t have an I-pod you can listen on your computer for free, or I think you can go to their website and download it directly at www.realestateguysradio.com.
I haven’t kept up with my posts recently, because I have had a severe back injury that had pretty much kept me bed ridden for a while. If you work a commissioned job, then you know what type of effect this can have on your income stream. Not to mention on the days when you try to talk or meet with a client trying to stay focused through extreme pain to make sure you are doing the best job to serve their needs.
From a personal standpoint spending days at a time not being able to work is not only frustrating, it brings out a great level of anxiety. How is it going to work in the future to keep providing the essential needs for my family should this become a permanent part of my life? Quality of life issues also come into play. I know many people out there are in extremely worse shape than I am, and to you I admire your ability to move forward everyday.
I have written in past posts about the ideas presented from The Secret, Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracey, Napoleon Hill, and other self help Gurus that provide tools for helping people who want to achieve their dreams. Links to most of these guys are on the right side of this page. “When you have clarity of vision, strategy and tactics become self evident.” Russ Gray, Real Estate Guys Radio Co-Host. “Obstacles are those things that scare you when you take your eyes off your goal.” Henry Ford. If you have subscribed to the Quote of the day on the Nightingale-Conant Site you would have seen the last one about a week or two ago. The point being, there is a never ending supply of this positive material that we can be feeding into us combating all the negativity we hear. It is a never ending bombardment about the elections, the economy, gas prices, floods, and many other tragedies every minute. If you listen long enough you would swear that the world is pretty close to ending.
My first week bed ridden, I really just watched TV the first few days the few hours I was awake. The pain meds kept me asleep the rest of the time. All of a sudden it became a frightening experience realizing that what I had written out for goals was about to become next to impossible. Without being able to go out and show houses all of the other necessary activities involved with my job, all that goal setting and planning I have been doing seemed to have just become waste. I really put myself in that true victim mode of why is this happening to me, it’s not fair, and started to allow myself give in to the negativity that surrounds all of us on a daily basis. This is what keeps many people from ever even trying to achieve their goals and dreams. I wouldn’t even play the newly updated Zig Ziglar webcast on my computer because I didn’t even want to be cheered up. If you have ever heard him speak, I don’t care how negative your mood is, his positive energy is so great that you can’t help but have an attitude change after hearing him for even a couple of minutes. During those days that feeling of complete isolation, no one else knows how I feel, and probably doesn’t care began to set in a little. I am sure everyone has been in this situation at least once in their life.
I knew I was heading down the wrong road with where I was going, and also realized that as Zig and many others have stated, we are in complete control what we put into our heads. I realized that no one was going to be able to help me but me. This doesn’t mean that didn’t I need a support system of friends and family, I did to help with my basic needs. Still that only goes so far until you put your head back into the right frame of mind. Henry Ford was right I had taken those obstacles and turned them into walls.
I pulled out my list of positive affirmations that I had written about myself some months ago, and looked at it again. For those unfamiliar with the process, take a piece of paper, and start writing what you are and what you want to become. Put it in first person and write it or say it three times in a row when you first wake up and follow it with some positive reinforcement reading or listening before ever turning on the regular radio, picking up the paper, or watching TV. A few examples off my affirmation sheet are, “I am a great husband, I am a great father, I am comfortable in all situations, I am a great Realtor, I know exactly what I want and am doing everything I can to get it.” I keep this stored in the front cover of my goals three ring binder I have created for myself.
It took me a few days but I realized that I am in a situation that I am not in complete control of, so I need to adjust to work around it. I had stopped doing everything I could to achieve exactly what I want. This was an important realization, many of the things that we get upset about, like a rude comment from a stranger, or friend or spouse for that matter, or getting cut off by another car while driving down the road, only puts us in a negative spiral. This can lead to an entire day of having one bad thing after another happen. Most of the reason I am writing this blog post is to remind myself of this point. When we put something in writing our minds really begin to work on making that materialize into actuality for us. It doesn’t matter whether is positive or negative. How many times have you said “Great, now my day is ruined and had it become anything but that.” Once we set our biases for how we are going to view things, we gravitate towards it and make it a reality. Imagine waking up every morning and saying, “This is going to be a spectacular day no matter what.” Even if small irritations happen, you will be less likely to let them start your negative spiral. Is it going to stop every bad day? No, but it sure can’t hurt to start with a positive mindset instead of a negative one.
You might be reading this and think that this is total nonsense. If that is your mindset than you are right, this is nothing worth taking seriously. For those interested, I would challenge you to make your own list of traits you want. Whether you believe you have them or not right now, write it down and say it out loud every day for at least a month and see if it makes a difference in your life. Remember, keep it in first person and keep at it even if it feels like you are lying to yourself at first. If it makes a difference, I would love for you to post your results on this blog page. This site may be geared towards real estate, but my personal mission statement I wrote a year ago for myself is this. “In being my very best, I will leave a positive impact on every person I encounter.” So spending a little time on goals and self actualization is a good thing. If you are considering buying either a home to live in or an investment property, setting goals is especially important. It is a huge decision, and important to make sure that you are prepared.
Even though I may not be able to be out on the streets everyday, I have been able to rely more on my team in John DeMarco and Mary Jo from KW to help keep the marketing plans moving forward. We are having great success with our new floor plans and pricing. I will go more into that next time.
I have really had a lot of time to put thoughts together both positive and negative, and have run through the gamut of emotions. It is hard to stay focused when so many lines are pulling you as try to move forward, and some days feel like you just failed. It was easy buying into all of the positive speakers when things were going great. How could I disagree with anything they said? The market was great, sales were hot everyone around had a job, that positive stuff was magic. I felt positive and I had nothing but positive things happening all around. Then I thought I was still being positive, and something like this happens. It gets a lot harder to try and agree with all of the gurus and their positivity programs when it seems everything crashes. Most people give up here and go into the victim mode of operation.
When I heard that quote stated in the beginning of the blog, “When God gives you a gift, he wraps it up in a problem, the bigger the gift, the bigger the problem.” All the of reading positive books, listening to every positive speaker, going to positive seminars, writing my affirmation statements finally made sense. I got hit with a big problem, it’s not my fault, and I can’t change it over night. This is not the time to give up on all of this, this is truly my opportunity to prove that it works, and become an example. Unfortunately, I have seen many people get to this point and back out. I watched one of my fathers friends literally whither up and let himself go until he finally passed. Being here now, it is easy to see why. It may sound weird, but I am now excited to have my current situation. This allows myself the opportunity to truly grow into a better person, and find a creative solution to still achieve my goals. Nothing in life ever goes as we truly plan. It is our job to make sure we stay on our course that we have set for ourselves. If you haven’t set a course, do it now. Use the tools out there to learn how to set clear concise goals and go after them. You don’t have to, but at that point life is in control of you, not the other way around. I know I want to set my own future, not depend on someone else to plan it for me.
I hope you all have a great start to your week. Work to keep a positive attitude as you go through your day. Try to pass it on to others around you as you go through your day by holding a door, saying hi walking down the street. You would be surprised the impact one kind word can make to a stranger, it may change the course of their day. As Zig Ziglar’s webcast says. “I hope your week is better than good.” I look forward to your feedback.