THE TWO MODES OF FOCUS YOU NEED TO MASTER FOR MASSIVE PROPERTY PROGRESS

Did you know that our brains have two different modes of focus?

By understanding and leveraging these modes effectively, making progress in your property business (or anything for that matter) can feel straight forward as pushing a hot knife through butter. However, by not leveraging these modes effectively your days and weeks can feel the total opposite – like trying to push treacle uphill. 

I first learned about these modes of focus about 6 years ago from a long standing business psychologist mentor who bases his approach on scientific research. When I understood and intentionally applied what I’m sharing, I experienced a step change in both productivity and sanity.

This week was mastermind week and what I’m sharing is essentially what underpinned everything we worked on in our sessions each day. More on that in a moment, first I’ll clarify the two modes of focus you need to understand:

DECISION MAKING FOCUS

We all know how tough it can be just to arrive at a decision, even with something simple like what Netflix movie to watch with the family 😊. Now take something much bigger and more impactful, like choosing a property strategy to focus on or deciding where your time is best allocated, and it can feel like climbing a mental mountain. 

The point is, we know decision making is hard mental work – it requires us to think through different options and possible outcomes. It’s tiring stuff and will literally deplete us of willpower and mental capacity. You’ve heard of ‘decision fatigue’ right – well it’s called that for a reason. Suffice to say that making decisions relating to your property business is difficult, especially when you’re trying to make decisions on your own and you are unsure of what your possible options even are. 

In order to arrive at decisions it takes that intentional focus to clarify what exactly is the decision in hand and to figure out what you will do to arrive at a decision. 

Winston Churchill referred to decision making as ‘the long road of agony’- that agony being the period before deciding should I or shouldn’t I, this path or that path. 

Churchill concludes however that“Once the decision is made all the agony goes away”. You will feel infinitely lighter and can now switch focus into taking action. 

ACTION TAKING FOCUS

This is when you have decided on a course of action – you have a clear picture in your mind of a completion point, you know your starting point and the first step, and you can just get on and do the thing without distractions or second guessing yourself. This is where the time invested in decision making pays huge dividends in your ability to execute and make visible progress.

Here’s the risk of jumping into ‘perceived action’ without investing in the DECISION MAKING FOCUS first. The danger of someone simply blocking out 3 x 1 hour slots in their diary to ‘work’ on their property business is this – when time slot 1 arrives they revert right back into decision making focus, trying to figure out what task to do first. This in itself depletes willpower and takes time. 

There’s an empirically measurable brain chemistry cost to sitting around picking out what to do next.

So lets say you decide after 10 minutes what to make a start on, it’s common to then second guess yourself and change tasks part way through because you think something else may be a better use of time. The hour flies by and at the end of it you can feel horrible about having bounced around tasks but not accomplished much. 

WHY IS ALL THIS RELEVANT?

We all know it, making decisions is hard mental work, especially trying to make decisions on your own in mental isolation. That’s why I love masterminding – as a small group acting as each other’s ‘private board of advisors’ we can arrive at big decisions far more easily. 

The way I see it, the work we do round a mastermind table is the mental gym work of decision making. Using this time to assess options and arrive at a decision- for example this strategy or that, pursue a certain property deal or not. This is all made far easier in the group environment where your thinking can be validated or challenged by your private board of advisors. With big decisions made, along with the first action steps to implement that decision, people can transition into action with clarity and conviction. This is the catalyst for making massive progress.

This is exactly what Chris and I do on the day long mastermind tables, and to an even deeper extent on our mastermind retreats where the decision making is for clarity on future self, the longer term, the year ahead and on creating implementation plans with granular specificity. [Keep a look out for more details about these mastermind retreats in the coming weeks].

So now you know the two modes of focus you need to master for massive progress in your property business.

What decision can you make today that will see you switch into action taking focus tomorrow?