Real Estate Investors With a Good Attitude: Smile and Get’er Done!

We’ve all heard about the importance of setting goals, but how many actually do it — I mean, how many actually organize their goals in achievable steps that all lead toward successful accomplishment? I do it better than I did, gaining more discipline as time goes on — through practice.

I have a fairly large capacity for being able to keep things in my head, so I have to force myself to formalize all that’s in my head by creating a system. I have learned to write things down even though I’m confident at the time I’ll remember. Too, many times, I thought I’d remember, but things slipped my mind when unexpected information piled up. I’ve found that for myself the simplest system works best, and I am using a combination of Google tools.

But my point goes beyond setting up a system and using it. I never realized how not using a system of goal achievement affected my attitude. Even though I can keep a lot of information in my head, it expends a lot of energy and weighs me down at times to the point that working on a project is not fun. By getting things down on paper, or down on the computer, it relieves my mind and I have something I can look at that shows progression toward my goals. The difference in my attitude was significant and I wasn’t near as overwhelmed as before.

Maintaining a positive attitude is hard enough in these times of constant negative news, but it makes it easier if you don’t overload yourself with poor habits and disorganization. By systematically accomplishing interim goals on the way to the big goal, the process is constantly relieving pressure and you are giving yourself little rewards along the way.

Anything to do with real estate is a people business, so maintaining a good attitude by relieving stress along the way also helps when you have to deal with people you hope to influence. Influencing people with a positive attitude can go a long ways toward achieving goals. As long as you can stay on the positive, goal-oriented side of things, even if you meet people along the way who are negative, YOUR postive attitude can make the difference — it’s sometimes infectious, and when others are ready to give up or bog it all down in petty differences, maintaining a positive attitude and being the goal-oriented leader can change the atmosphere and direction of the deal. The people I gravitate towards and want to do business with are strong, positive people who listen and understand and help work out difficulties with energy and good spirit.

Being known as a positive person who is a problem-solver makes it easier to find good deals once word-of-mouth gets out. Building a network of people who you’ve influenced in a positive way leads to good results. No one wants to work with, or help, someone who is always negative and a pain-in-the-butt to deal with. Once a positive attitude starts yielding positive results, self-confidence is boosted, which is another good trait to have.

So, it all starts with creating a good systematic means of accomplishing little goals on the way to the big goal, relieving stress by being organized and goal-oriented, thereby freeing yourself to develop a dynamic, positive attitude that attracts and influences people and gets results. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? It’s not — that’s why not all investors are successful.

Note From the Editor: BiggerPockets has set up a discussion thread to keep up with your monthly real estate goals - check out the April Goals Thread. Share your goals and keep yourself accountable!

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Tags: goal-setting, investing with a positive attitude, real estate goals, real estate investing