Change Your Mindset Before Your Business Suffers

Owning and running a business is hard. As much freedom and flexibility as the real estate business offers it comes with plenty of stress and sleepless nights. For all the elation you get from closing a big deal there is also dejection from losing a deal you worked on for months. How well you handle rejection and setbacks often determine the strength of your business.

The nature of any business, especially real estate investing, is that you will face negatives far more than you encounter positives. By letting the negatives get to you it can eventually change your mindset. You will start assuming something bad will happen even if you have no reason to think that way. This will creep into your personality and eventually how you run your business. It is ok to consider the negative in every situation but you can’t be consumed by it. Here are five ways to change your negative mindset before your business suffers because of it.

• Be accountable. When something negative happens in your business human nature is to blame others. Instead of quickly looking to find fault and place blame you need to be accountable. Habits don’t change unless they are addressed. It is easy to look around and see who may have dropped the ball or didn’t do their job as well as they could have. However, as a real estate investor you are the point person for everything in the transaction. If someone isn’t pulling their weight or doing their job it is up to you to get to the bottom of why. Don’t wait until something bad happens before you address it. Certainly don’t lose your head after the fact. Mistakes and setbacks are part of the business. When they happen you need to get to the bottom of why if not they are bound to repeat themselves.
• Have confidence. Nobody in business is right about everything. Regardless of the industry or the individual you can find a mistake along the way. The difference is with successful people they choose not to dwell on it. If you have made it this far there is a good chance you are pretty good at what you do. There is always room for improvement but you are probably on the right track. Now is the time to trust all the hard work you put in and all your education and be confident in yourself. You don’t need to bat .1000 in real estate to be successful. As long as your hits outweigh your misses you will be fine. When you fall into a rough patch think about how you became successful and what you did to get there. Acknolwedge the mistakes but have the positive mindset to put them in the rearview mirror and move on. You are always just one decision or one deal away from turning the corner.
• Eliminate negative people. There is truly no more annoying person to be around than the person who is negative and complains about everything. This is the person that will complain it is too hot on an island vacation or the concert is too loud in the front row. They will shoot down every idea you have based on an experience they had years ago. They are far from an expert on things but often have the loudest opinion. As difficult as it may be you need to eliminate these people from your business, and your life. Regardless of who you are if you hear something all day eventually it starts to stick. Listening to negative people may cause you to be gun shy about a marketing idea or an investing niche. Instead of spitballing ideas around you will be hesitant to speak your mind in fear that an idea will be shot down. Swapping out the negative voices with positive, like minded people will do more for your business than almost anything else.
• Accept change. Something that happened in your business or in the market six months ago doesn’t have any impact on today. It is important to recognize that the cycle of business doesn’t stop. People with outdated thoughts or rely on data from months ago shouldn’t complain when things change. If you don’t accept that you must change right along with the business you are doomed to fail. You can’t complain if the value of a property has gone down over the last 90 days. This is the just the nature of the real estate market. You embrace the market when it goes up so you need to adjust your mindset if it goes down. Nothing in business ever stays exactly the same. If you keep holding onto outdated thoughts and ideas you will easily become frustrated.
• Conformity. It is ok to be your own person. Some of the most successful investors have a personality all their own. Too often new investors get frustrated in trying to be like the investors around them. This causes them to lose deals, become disinterested in the business and carry a constant negative attitude. You can run your business any way you like. If you want to try something outside the box it is ok to experiment. If you want to pursue a property or a deal that isn’t popular you can go that route too. Instead of being upset that you aren’t having the same success as a fellow investor you should look for ways to become more individual. If not you will end up frustrated and miserable every day.

 Controlling how you think dictates how you act. Changing your mindset is something that can positively impact your business virtually overnight.