One of the biggest problems real estate professionals have is they can’t think without fear. Fear limits their ability to think. For many people, fear dominates their entire thinking and way of life. Fear of failure, fear of loss, fear of what other people may think of them, and so on. When these people start taking action and face failure, they become paralyzed. They’re quickly if not immediately deterred from their goal, sometimes permanently. The reason is even before these people even act their thinking is mired in encumbrances, and their thinking sabotages their actions.
When you can’t see even visualize major success in your real estate career, your thinking is being clouded by fear. When our thinking is at all based on fear, our ability to even think is limited. Our brains can be incredibly resourceful allies, but only when we want them to be and therefore allow them to be. When you tend to think of what can go wrong rather than what can go right, you’re telling your brain not to help you find a way. So pessimistic people actually do more to create what will go wrong than people who don’t think that way. In many cases, the reality of whether we can accomplish something is completely determined by whether we think we can accomplish it or not.
“It’s impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face … and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies.” – Apocalypse Now
Have you ever noticed the power of your mind to bring to you just the right word or thought, exactly when you need it, when you’re in the middle of an important meeting like a listing presentation? When you start out believing fully you can get that listing, you’ll marshall your mind’s resources so you say the right things at the right times to get the listing.
But imagine how much more difficult that presentation would be if you didn’t believe you could get the listing. Your mind wouldn’t bother sifting through its vast resources, looking for the right thing to say, if you didn’t think you would succeed. Your lack of self confidence would be apparent to the sellers. If you don’t believe you can sell it, why should they believe in you?
“None can cure their harms by wailing them” – William Shakespeare
A way we can overcome our fears and limited thinking is by learning to think in terms of possibilities, not limitations. To think in terms of what can go right, not what can go wrong. Knowing that even if things go wrong, they can be made right. It’s best to start with small things for training yourself to think in terms of possibilities. The next time you face a problem with no clear solution, no matter what it is, deliberately focus on ways you can solve it until you do solve it. Or take on small challenges for yourself. Try doing crossword puzzles or Sudoku or challenge yourself at the gym to attain certain things. Chances are, the more time you spend focusing on possible solutions to these challenges, the more likely the right solutions will come to mind. The more often you do this, the more you’ll realize your fears are usually far greater than the things feared.
Realizing this is a major step toward vanquishing fear altogether.
