It feels like we don’t have anything big to report this week. When I sat down to write our weekly post, at first I felt deflated that we don’t have some exciting new achievement to share, then I realised that’s not reality, the journey is made up of hundreds of little steps. The reality is that whilst there have been no big milestones hit or new deals done, Chris and I have been working steadily on our business goals…we’re analysing new build development sites, in discussions about leasing blocks of apartments and continuing to manage operations of a successful SA business.
This feeling of “we’ve got nothing big to share this week” got me thinking that there are likely many other VIPs/investors/entrepreneurs out there feeling like their goals are distant and things aren’t happening fast enough. So I thought I’d write a longer post and share some helpful mental reframes that I’ve learned over the years from a business psychologist mentor. This post is a bit of a deeper dive on understanding the quirks of our mind to help on our way to wealth, freedom and sanity.
An intro to entrepreneur psychology self-diagnosis
There are four ways entrepreneurs typically trip themselves up:
- Hesitation and self doubt – it’s the #1 form of self sabotage
- For productive people, they can get the sense of never feeling finished or good enough
- Getting distracted by new opportunities/what others are doing
- Questioning your own vision/goals i.e. am I even working towards the right thing?
I’m referencing these because it’s key that we understand our psychology so we don’t get caught out by any of these.
The other common pitfall for ambitious entrepreneurs is to fall into black or white thinking (called “splitting”). In other words we can hold ourselves to impossible standards and when we inevitably fail to meet those, we write ourselves off/mentally beat ourselves up. An example might be pushing yourself in all areas of life but still not feeling like you are winning, like the ultra entrepreneurs you might read about or hear on podcasts.
On a smaller scale it might be as simple as putting in a solid week of action taking towards your goals but not feeling like you’ve achieved enough at the end of the week (I get this a lot, but I’m figuring out how to manage it).
HERE ARE SOME EXERCISES TO HELP COMBAT THIS ALL OR NOTHING THINKING
One big antidote to this is to re-frame our thinking to recognise that incremental progress is the ONLY progress. The reality is that the titans we read about were not overnight success stories.
Splitting (or black and white thinking) happens because we fail to plan for incremental progress. The journey HAS to be rewarding for us to be congruent about our ambition.
If you can relate to any of these mental pitfalls then use the exercises below:
- Journal and plan out out your goals – figure out what it would be like being in the trenches working towards your goal, with all the in between steps, and brainstorm how you can make the journey itself feel better (i.e. more fulfilling and fun). This kind of thinking helps us prepare for the opposite of black and white thinking, it shows us that realistically there are many steps involved
- Ask yourself, what would it feel like to be 50% done? What would it feel like to get started? (think- what can I do to make the answers to these questions feel better?)
- Write out baby steps building towards the much larger projects (this can be straightforward with a refurb or even a new build project)
- Commit to a specific three actions each week
- Always set your commitments to the most courageous and important work (i.e. not just the easy stuff you would do anyway)
- Get used to celebrating incremental (week by week) progress
These exercises will help you understand that getting into the the thick of things and being in the process, rather than at the destination, is the fulfilling thing. For property entrepreneurs, and indeed any entrepreneur for that matter, this is key as big goals aren’t achieved every week.
Ultimately the goal is to be comfortable working towards things. Success is a practice not a destination.
I’ve recently had a number of questions from VIP members at earlier stages in their journey so I hope posts like this serve to help you through the slower periods and encourage you to keep taking meaningful action. It’s not purely about the end destination, it’s about continuous steps in the right direction and reflecting back every few weeks to see how far you’ve come, and feeling good about that.
I hope you can look back on the last seven days as a win for the week and here’s to a great week to come.