Real estate coaches and the value of ongoing training have never been more crucial. As 2023 winds down, level up with advice from top coaches, training resources and so much more during Inman’s Coaching and Training Month in October.

Are you wondering what will give you an edge and increase your level of success in this market (and beyond)?

Success is defined differently by industry, organizations and by different people. One thing that’s clear? Success is no longer singularly defined by the bottom line.

In our work with countless real estate professionals, it’s evident that sustainable success must include joy, overall wellness and purpose, with increased financial growth. In fact, this mindful and holistic model of success requires a prioritization of joy, a focus on overall wellness, and a clear sense of purpose to consistently increase profits and prosperity. 

Considering this definition of success, to increase your current level of success in a market affected by a general sense of frustration, negative rapport talk outside the office, insecure and increasingly needy clients, not to mention low inventory and higher interests, it’s crucial to cultivate an edge beyond cleaning up your CRM and using the usual tools. 

Mindful success that doesn’t sacrifice our wellness and joy, or profits for the sake of profits alone, requires us to take ownership and responsibility for our business, our lives and our future. Taking ownership of our success makes us less likely to fall into negative spirals. This edge comes into play when many are looking for something or someone to blame, whether that’s their clients, interest rates, the overall economy, media chatter and the list goes on. 

When we’re engaged in mindful success, we center ourselves and focus on the actions we can take. This is the growth edge that will help you remain consistent, willing to try new things and become adaptable while keeping an unwavering eye on your personal and professional goals.

Let’s lean in. Taking ownership of your success requires several key elements. While these steps are not mutually exclusive, we recommend you begin in the following order and continue to come back to them until you find yourself naturally defaulting to using them together.

Cultivate self-awareness

One of the first aspects of taking ownership of your success is developing self-awareness. What exactly does self-awareness mean? According to researchers Shelley Duval and Robert Wicklund: “Self-awareness is the ability to focus on yourself and how your actions, thoughts, or emotions do or don’t align with your internal standards. If you’re highly self-aware, you can objectively evaluate yourself, manage your emotions, align your behavior with your values, and understand correctly how others perceive you.” 

Becoming more and more objective increases the likelihood of identifying negative or unproductive patterns and tendencies that have conveniently remained hidden in your “blindspot” or that you’ve tolerated as “unimportant.” Simultaneously, becoming more objective decreases the likelihood of self-deprecation and self-blame that stalls forward momentum.  

When you develop an honest relationship with yourself through self-awareness, you create the opportunity to identify, clarify and align with what it is you want to truly achieve. When we take the time to tune up our awareness and create an honest relationship with ourselves, we achieve the first step in taking ownership and responsibility for our own success.

Create clear and meaningful goals

Defining specific and meaningful goals that reflect your aspirations will allow you to claim a new level of success. Jot down three immediate goals and three long-term goals.

A key component of this step is knowing why these goals are important. What’s the driver behind these goals? Increased profits and prosperity aren’t enough unless you know why this is important. This is how your goals become purposeful and allow you to sustain momentum when things become challenging.

Once you’ve gotten honest with yourself, your goals, and the motivation behind these goals, it’s time to establish both short-term and long-term objectives and break them down into actionable steps. Then you show up with a sense of clarity rather than chaos.

Set-up accountability structures

From yourself: Ultimately, you are the one who is in control of your success personally and professionally. Take responsibility by holding yourself accountable for your actions, choices and outcomes.

Your decisions have consequences, and only you can take responsibility for yourself. Ask yourself: What am I choosing right now? Is this aligned with my goals? Is this a distraction? Is this an excuse? Is this one step on the path to goal fulfillment?

From accountability buddies or a like-minded community: You don’t need to go it alone. In fact, we find that it’s imperative that we connect and support one another. Be mindful of those who genuinely support your success. Forge new connections with others who will pair up with you and become your accountability buddy.

Immerse yourself in supportive communities with others who encourage one another, celebrate goal setting, create accountability, and take action. 

From a mentor or coach: Seek support from mentors and coaches who can hold you accountable, challenge you to grow, and provide expert guidance along your journey. 

Reflect and take action

After considering the points in this article, set some time aside and reflect on the following questions. This is the most important part of this article because this is where you have an opportunity to raise your awareness, get honest with yourself about your past actions and decisions, and plan for new actions. 

How to approach these reflection questions: First and foremost, commit to consider these questions without judgment. Second, use these questions to challenge yourself to consider how to assume a greater sense of ownership and responsibility to drive your future success.

With kindness and honesty, ask yourself the following:

• What decisions and actions have I made in the past that have directly contributed to my current level of success?
• Where have I made excuses, allowed distractions to take over my focus, and ignored (or procrastinated) on opportunities?
• Am I willing to accept my current level of success as a springboard for a more satisfying, well-rounded, and sustainable experience of personal and professional success?
• How can I take greater ownership and responsibility for my success moving forward?
• What do I need to continue doing? What do I need to do better or more efficiently? What do I need to stop doing?
• What actions will you take today to begin?

Taking ownership and responsibility is the most powerful business edge you can develop right now. The results of taking ownership of our success are far-reaching, create sustainable growth and contribute to our overall joy, wellness and purpose in every sphere of our lives. 

Melanie C. Klein, M.A. and Emily Bossert are two highly sought-after coaches known for empowering individuals and teams to achieve their full potential and success. Melanie has written and contributed to over 9 books on empowerment, personal transformation, and cultivating resilience. Emily is a highly regarded real estate Sales Manager and co-hosts The 6AMers. Together, they co-coach a 90-day group coaching program offering over 52 years experience at the intersection of mindfulness, embodiment, conscious leadership and entrepreneurship.

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The post Get Rid Of The Negativity And Cultivate Mindful Success appeared first on Minds Valley.

John Hain/Pixabay, used with permission

When you read the title, you may have had a double take: “A mental coach is telling me to accept my negativity? How can that be?” I realize that my statement is counterintuitive, but let me show you why accepting your negativity is actually the best thing to do whenever anything unhelpful enters your mind.

To begin, negativity is one of the most common reasons why people come to me. Despite having demonstrated in your life that you can achieve your goals, your mind may be filled with negativity, uncertainty, doubt, worry, “what ifs,” anxiety, frustration, fear, or anger, particularly just before important events when positivity is so critical.

There are two reasons why you go to the “dark side.” First, regardless of your objective abilities, you may lack confidence in that ability. This disconnect is so important because you may have all the ability to be successful, but if you don’t believe you have that ability, you won’t give your best effort to fully realize that ability.

Second, that negativity keeps your expectations low, which reduces the pressure you put on yourself. It also protects you from the pain of failure if you do give it your all and you don’t achieve your goals; you have an excuse for your failure. This reaction relates to a fear of failure (a topic you can learn more about by reading my four-part series). In other words, by being negative, if you end up performing poorly (at work or in school, or in some other setting), you won’t be that disappointed because you will have expected it. And if you actually exceed your self-imposed low expectations, then it feels like a bigger victory than it might actually be (and a big relief that you didn’t fail).

Regardless of the cause of your negativity, it will only hurt you in your efforts to push your limits and realize your goals. So, the question you must ask is: “What do I do when negativity rears its ugly head in my mind?”

Resisting Negativity

Negativity is very large and heavy psychologically and emotionally, meaning once it gets in your mind, it is very difficult to remove it. The typical reaction that most people have is to tell themselves, “Stop being so negative.” In other words, you try to push that negativity out of your mind. Unfortunately, that approach usually doesn’t work. Here’s an exercise that explains why: Don’t think about a pink elephant. What did you do? You likely thought about a pink elephant, despite my asking you not to. But really, don’t think about a pink elephant, don’t think about a pink elephant, don’t think about a pink elephant. What happens? You can’t get that pesky pink elephant out of your mind. Here’s why. Imagine the pink elephant in a room and you want to get it out of the room. Have you ever tried to move a pink elephant (or any colored elephant, for that matter)? Probably not, but I think it’s safe to assume that, because of its size and weight, you would not be able to move it. Negativity is like that pink elephant.

Inside the “room” that is your mind, your negativity also remains stubbornly in place. Like the pink elephant, it just doesn’t want to move. In sum, resisting psychological or emotional negativity actually entrenches it more deeply in your psyche and it is virtually impossible to force it out of your mind.

In doing so, it hurts you in several ways. First, it is monumentally distracting, causing you to devote far too much bandwidth to thoughts and feelings that are decidedly counterproductive. Second, the negativity feeds on itself, thus adding volume and intensity to the negativity. What might have started out as, for example, uncertainty and self-doubt, can metastasize into self-criticism, frustration, or worse, that can fill every corner of your mind and none of which plays nicely with performing your best, connecting with others, or just being happy. Third, it burns a lot of unnecessary emotional energy that just doesn’t feel good.

Accepting Negativity

Accepting negativity doesn’t mean believing or embracing the meaning or feelings behind it. Instead, it means acknowledging that it’s there and that resisting it won’t make it go away. You can say, “Okay, I’m feeling some negativity.” By accepting, rather than resisting the negativity, you let the negative energy flow past you, rather than wasting energy pushing back against it. You also deflate the negative energy because you’re not adding to it by resisting it, thus reducing its corrosive impact on you.

You can also recognize that some negativity in life is normal; most everyone has doubts that crop up when confronted with a challenge. So, no, you’re not a freak for experiencing negativity; to the contrary, you are just decidedly human (despite your best protestations to the contrary). Yet, in beating yourself up for being negative, you add insult to injury by feeling negative about feeling negative.

Then, ask yourself where the negativity is coming from. Perhaps it comes from long-standing insecurities, insufficient confidence, lack of preparation, or someone important to you expressing doubts about your chances of accomplishing your goals.

If you have negativity, you might consider whether that negativity has any basis in reality. For example, negativity might simply be an accurate reflection of your current lack of readiness to achieve your goals. You may simply not be ready so your negativity is reasonable. If so, you can either choose to try another day or decide that, despite your lack of complete readiness, you are going to do your best with what you have.

If your negativity isn’t grounded in reality, then you can challenge it. Tell yourself that it’s not true and why it’s not true. By actively challenging your negativity, it will affect you less because negativity is like a bully; if you stand up to it, it will back down. With practice at replacing your negativity with positive alternatives, you take away the power of the negativity until it no longer has a hold on you.

You can also create some positive alternatives you can say to yourself when you go negative. Make a list of some of the negativity you say to yourself. Write down positive options that can counter the negativity. When you start to go negative, repeat the positive statement to yourself. This swap from negative to positive “polarity” in your thinking has several benefits. First, it disrupts the negative thinking loop you can get stuck in. Second, it redirects your mind in a positive direction. Third, with practice, you can retrain your mind away from the negative mental habit and replace it with a positive and more productive mental habit.

Finally, often negativity arises when you feel helpless to control the situation. To counter that feeling of lack of control, shift your focus onto something that you can control and that will actually help you achieve your goals. As you gain a sense of control, the negativity will likely subside because control will give you confidence and reduce the threat that is causing your negativity.

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The post Accept, Don’t Resist, Your Negativity appeared first on Minds Valley.