Hustle Culture not vibing with you? - The secret method you need to know for your real estate business

"Rise & Grind" the post said as I was filtering through, stuck in a scroll-hole oblivious to the physical world around me. To myself I thought "yesssss!!!" and I may have even re-posted it, I can't remember. That was years ago now and my state of mind is definitely different today. I look back and think about how much stress I put on myself, most likely for no reason at all.

You see, I'm a goal-oriented person and I like to see progress when I set my mind to something. I'll be completely candid here and tell you that I enjoy pushing myself harder than many. Even though I like my naturally-introverted ways, I still love a great adrenaline kick and that beautiful feeling of accomplishment when I finish a big project. I have big dreams and I have big goals, but one very drastic change has taken place over the past few years....I no longer believe in the "grind 24/7" mentality. 

Why? Well, life happened of course, and aligned things into a better perspective for me. A much healthier and balanced perspective in my honest opinion. Now please understand, if you work great under the grind-mentality, then I think that's totally cool. To each, their own. But for me, it wasn't working and hadn't been working for a long time. I just couldn't see it nor what it was doing to me mentally, emotionally, and physically.

I love to work. Honestly, I truly enjoy it, remember that whole feeling of accomplishment thing I mentioned earlier, that's why. Real estate has always facilitated that internal drive for me, as it probably does for you too. However, it can also very easily suck us into working non-stop and that's where our problem lies.

For some of us, it's hard to walk away from that internal drive. We can tend to push off family events, dating life or significant others, time for relaxation, social time with friends, exercise, health concerns, our spirituality or connection to God, vacations, etc. Heck, we will put off eating!!! This is part of the ugly side of business ownership that isn't talked about. It's the part where we need to learn boundaries for ourselves and we have to stick to them.

This is also where I've learned that it's better to have the "Flow" mentality, which is working much better for me these days. Under a flow mentality, you're going to basically just flow with the ups and downs of your business instead of pushing constantly like "hustle" culture tells us to. I'm not saying you're not going to work on growing your business or that you're just going to sit on the couch and do nothing. You still have to work. However, it's just not so much pressure to constantly go hard 24/7. It's basically aligning into knowing how to thrust or throttle when needed. 

For example, I use to try to call every single person back in the day that they called. I felt like I HAD to in order to get it off my to-do list and I no longer practice that. Yes, I try to be timely in getting back to them still. However, if it's the next day because I'm booked on the day they called, it's fine.

Many times, when you return a call, you're creating more work for yourself. More business is good, but it also can have a negative side if not controlled properly. If you call 5 people back in one afternoon at 5 pm., now you just created an evening of work for yourself or thinking about their problems and how to fix them all night long.

Let's space it out some and weave returning their calls in and out of your daily tasks the next day. This will also help you to reduce or eliminate late nights of work or weekend work. This is the action behind you setting a healthy boundary while simultaneously letting others know that your time is valuable.

Now understand, I'm not telling you to blow off contractual deadlines or negotiations, but those are the times that you thrust instead of throttle. I want you to have less of the thrust periods so you're not so stressed or filled with anxiety daily. It's not healthy what we can put ourselves through as business owners in our industry. We need to learn to flow with our real estate businesses.

This also brings us to the aspect of marketing and having a steady marketing system in place. This will help exponentially with the up-and-down rollercoaster pipeline of leads and return clients. Yes, it takes time to set up and start generating clientele, but I highly advise you to have a marketing strategy and system in place. It's a necessity.

Another example of utilizing the flow work mentality is to have a 90-day reflection process within your business. This is astounding for you to see what is being done within your business and to see how much progress (or lack thereof) you're making. Most of the time you'll be blown away by what you see from doing this practice.

Set a date each quarter to sit down and journal everything and anything that comes to mind about what you've done over the past 90 days. You can keep this to only your real estate business or you can include personal accomplishments too. This is your way and there's no right or wrong way. Write down anything that comes to mind no matter how big or how small.

These are your wins so celebrate them! Maybe you learned a new app. Maybe you put together a new listing or buyer presentation. Maybe you worked out 4 days a week. Whatever it is, write it down. This is progress in your business and your life!

Do you want to really up your game? Set quarterly goals, even if it's just 1 deal a quarter. Then when you do your 90-Day Reflection, compare it to the goals that you set to see how they line up. If they aren't lining up then you know that you'll need to change some things around in your daily routine to accomplish your quarterly goal. It'll shed light on what you're spending your time on and also where you need to focus more time. 

One last thing that I'd like to mention here is not to take everything so seriously. If you met your goals, that's awesome. If not, then you have a new goal for the next quarter. It's that simple. Life is a game and none of us rescued the princess on Level 1 of Mario Bros the first time we played it. (I'm just going to assume here that everyone knows what Mario Bros is ;).) Enjoy life, enjoy your business, enjoy your goals, and enjoy your journey along the way. Your happiness depends upon it.

Much love sweet agent and Shine On ~ Your Real Estate Coach,
Amanda