Are you a “can do” or a “I can’t be bothered” person?
What is it that makes us want to get up in the morning? What is it that makes us want to do well at study and our job? What is it that drives us to do better in life?
We all know the answer to that one:
MOTIVATION !!
Motivation is the driving force behind most of what we do, but here’s a question for you: How do you go staying motivated? Now, that’s a question I’d like to know the answer to. So, what’s motivation got to do with buying property?
Buying your own home or an investment property and especially if you are looking to build an investment portfolio, takes time and effort. Now here, I’m not talking about the effort it takes to go out and mow the lawn, nor the time it takes to wash the car. Not even the time it takes to pay off your car. That’s usually only around the 5 year mark. No, to buy a property, you’re in for a committed effort over an extended period of time even up to 30 years. But don’t worry, it’s not a bad time. It is actually a very uplifting time.
Firstly, you would be in your own home, that you own (except for the bit that the bank owns but that reduces every week anyway) and that’s a great feeling. Knowing that every time you pay a little more off the mortgage, you own a little more of your dream. Knowing that if you have a little windfall and pay even $100 extra off your mortgage now, you save thousands in interest at the other end.
OK, anyone not motivated yet?
Secondly, if you’re kicking off your property investment portfolio, or even better, adding another property, that’s an even better feeling. Knowing that your financial freedom is on the way, your retirement is looking good and that you’ve got some serious holidays coming up is very satisfying.
Feel that little hint of excitement in the pit of your stomach? That’s motivation kicking in and so far, while we’re only talking about what can happen, you’re already imagining it. Wait until you start the actual journey and you feel how motivated that gets you.
Alright then, once we’re motivated to begin and we’ve taken that first step, how do we keep up the motivation?
“Yep, there’s bad stuff happening all around the world at the moment with covid happening everywhere, but don’t forget………..we also invented chocolate”.
Set goals – Remember we talked about that recently? Write them down. Set your end goal and don’t forget to write down the smaller goals along the way. Reward yourself each time you achieve one of those smaller goals. Read them out loud often! Read them to your kids to start teaching them too.
Select the right goals – It’s no good setting a goal for something that is of no interest to you. If one of your goals happens to be uninteresting, make it interesting or find something about it that is interesting to focus on.
Make your goal public – Tell everyone, post it on Facebook, or get an aircraft to sign write it in the sky. Remember last week? Write it down and stick it where you’ll see it every day.
Check your progress – Review your goals every now and then. Keeping the motivation up is much easier when you can see that you are making progress.
Start easy – Start from your easiest goal wherever possible and work your way into the harder goals. Achieving those easier milestones will help build confidence for the bigger ones.
Don’t go it alone – Engage an accountability partner. This needs to be someone who will back you up and encourage you, but who will most of all, keep you accountable to your goals. You can pay for a professional coach or mentor or you can get a good friend or family member onside. Take them on your journey with you.
Use positive and negative motivation to your advantage:
Positive motivation keeps you going because you understand that when you’ve reached your goal, you’ve achieved success.
Negative motivation is my kind of motivation. “If I don’t achieve this goal, I will have failed.” That’s my best motivation; While you can achieve different levels of success, I don’t like failing at anything. When my goals aren’t reached, that little hint of excitement in the pit of my stomach turns into a larger hint of fear of failure.
Did you write your goal on your sticky note and put it on your bathroom mirror last week as we discussed? If not, why not? Do you not have a goal in life?
Buying property is a huge goal. You’ll have to gather up all your motivation and write a huge post-it note for that one but write it just the same. Why? Writing that goal down is the first step in one of your most important life journeys. Do it well and your first goal to own your own home, could turn into the first step in owning your own property investment portfolio.
How’s that for motivation?
I have my goals written down and my vision board is established, how are you going with yours? Let me give you a hand.
Are you for a challenge? Are you serious about achieving your goals? Let’s see who is serious.
Here’s the challenge:
- Write down your goal on paper, a whiteboard or blackboard or the old post-it note.
- Put it where you will see it every day.
- Take a photo of where you have put it.
- Send the photo in an email toP geoff@ppba.com.au .
- I’ll put your goal on the PPBA website. Don’t worry, I won’t put your name to it, but you’ll know it’s yours and you can show it to your friends and family.
- I’ll send you a link to the “goals” page.
- You’ll also be able to see goals from other newsletter readers and you can see what you have in common. (IMPORTANT: Don’t compare your goals with those of other people. Your goals are yours and their goals won’t suit your life.) Use other people’s goals for inspiration, sure, but don’t adopt them just because they sound good.
OK, get thinking and by that, I mean get dreaming about what you want in life, get writing, photo taking and emailing.
We also offer a free one hour consultation to start your property buying journey with PPBA. There’s nothing saying we can’t use some of that time to assist you with your goal setting. We’re happy to do that.
You’ve got to make the decision sooner or later. Better to make it as soon as possible………..if not sooner.
