What better way to celebrate a holiday weekend (and the start of football season!) than to sit back, relax about investing, and gain a little motivation? Whether you are a brand new investor and struggling over the hurdles of getting started, or you are a more advanced investor and just hitting the usual obstacles, it always helps to take a deep breath, exhale, and calm down.

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The perfect analogy is lifting weights at the gym. Almost every time I lift weights at the gym I start struggling more and more to get in another rep, when all of a sudden I realize I’m not even breathing. Once I realize this, I take a deep inhale as I lift another one and exhale as I recover. All of a sudden, the reps are 10x easier and I can keep going! It’s amazing what just breathing alone can allow you to do. Just breathing can easily let me get 20 reps of something in while not breathing would likely cap me at 10.

Since it is a holiday weekend and I would rather you be out drinking a margarita and relaxing than reading BiggerPockets (sorry, BiggerPockets), I am keeping this post short. It doesn’t need to be long anyway because all I want to do is give you little words of wisdom that can have a powerful impact on your investing career. No matter who you are or what kind of investing you are doing, following these simple tips will change for your life.

Tips for Survival

• Celebrate each win. No matter how small. They all count, and even small wins combined equal a big win! Don’t discount anything you do successfully. Even treat yourself to dinner and congratulate yourself. I’m not kidding.
• Learn something from every loss. Losses will happen. Simply evaluate what went wrong, realize that losses are required to get good, and change things around so you avoid the problem next time.
• Realize you have to lose to win big. If you never mess up, you aren’t trying hard enough. If you are playing it so safe that nothing ever goes wrong, there is no way you can ever hit the big rewards. Don’t be stupid in what you do, but don’t hold on too tight either. Losing is okay. And expected.
• Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone, I don’t care who you are. We are human! Don’t knock yourself if you mess up. See above about taking losses to win big. Same premise.
• Know that there is little you can’t control. If you really think about it. You won’t always be able to prevent a tenant from screwing you, or you can’t not fix the broken roof, and there will always be unexpected costs in flipping, but if you do the right amount of due diligence you can avoid the majority of unexpected!
• Find your niche. You have one, I promise. Niches can be hard to find, but trust me that once you find it life will be much easier. If you are trying to figure out how to find yours, just keep digging and research and pursuing and your niche will come to you.
• Don’t ask if you can do something, ask how to do it. A mentor of mine taught me this and it has been extremely helpful. If you ever want to do something, there is a way to do it. You just have to find it. So don’t ask whether it’s possible or not, figure out how it can be done. There is a way.
• Ask questions. I had so many questions in red ink when I started out that I dare you to think you can ask more than I did. Don’t hold back because you think something is a stupid question! I guarantee someone else has asked the same one.
• Do what feels good. If you are going to lose sleep at night from a decision you made, don’t make that decision. Real estate investing is great, and there are great deals, but none worth losing sleep over. With that in mind though, if you think you will lose sleep over any deal, work on expanding your comfort level so you don’t miss out.
• Don’t burn bridges. It’s a surprisingly small real estate world. Word travels fast if you aren’t up to snuff. Whether you are a buyer or a seller doesn’t matter. Be respectful, be accountable, and be nice.
• Use your own judgment. If it walks like a duck…
• Numbers are all that matter. Make sure you have every reason to believe you will make money on the deal. This means doing accurate analyses and having some margin for error.

That’s it. That’s my whole post. Now go get a margarita, spend time with your friends and family, enjoy your time off from work, and do something fun! And as soon as you are done doing those things, if you have an awesome tip to add to my list, definitely comment it so everyone can see it. You never know whose life you might change just by adding that one point.

Happy BBQing!

Photo Credit: Josh Koonce via Compfight cc