MINDSET: WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE ABOUT YOURSELF?

 By: Mark Frentz
www.akerahomes.com
mfrentz@akerahomes.com

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What do You Believe about Yourself?

Why in the world am I writing a post about belief in self in a blog about real estate investing? Because what we believe about ourselves affects how we view our future and what is possible. If I believe I am an idiot and will always be an idiot, it doesn't make a lot of sense to learn about investing because I will most likely fail at it anyway. If I work on beliefs and become a person who truly believes I can retire at 50 with good cash flow and great investments, I will automatically work toward those goals and achieve them in much the same way I was avoiding them before. In this post I will simply discuss how our thinking affects our outlook on life. In my next post I will discuss how our thinking and outlook influence our behaviors and what we end up receiving in life.

First Things First

Before changing beliefs, we must recognize what we believe in the first place. What you need to begin doing is to start paying attention to how you talk about yourself and interact with others. Do you apologize all the time even when you haven't done anything wrong? What about what you say under your breath when you stub your toe, make a mistake, or drop/break something? Ask someone close to you how you talk about yourself (ask someone who is both safe enough to be vulnerable with as well as someone who cares about you enough to tell the truth even if it may sting a bit.

Another help in understanding how you judge ourselves is to begin looking at the way you think of others or talk about them to yourself. Do you call them names? Are you harsh? I'll let you in on a secret... The way we judge others is often a glimpse into how we judge ourselves. It's fascinating and sad to me that most people are so hard on themselves. Why do we need people calling us names when we are able to use much harsher words for ourselves?

Reality is Subjective

If you repeat something enough times you will begin to believe it even if it doesn't make sense. This is how our brains work and you can begin to use it to your advantage. Here is an experiment you can try for the next 60 days. Whenever anyone asks you about your job, your boss, your partner, or your kids paint a good picture and focus on the positives of what you are asked. The key here is not to lie "My kids are incredible! They never fight and one is most likely going to graduate from Stanford when she is 13 years old". Tell the truth and focus on the positives: My wife works hard for our family, I love that I am good at what I do for a living and I especially enjoy... I think you get the picture.

I learned this lesson well when I was working on my bachelor degree. I worked as a landscaper in the summers and one summer was struggling with my attitude. I decided to only talk well about my job after being confronted by a friend. By the end of my 4 months summer holidays I realized I was really enjoying this work again: I worked outside all summer, I had a boss who was easy going and tried to treat us fairly, I made decent money for what I did, I worked with friends, and I repeated just the positives of my job each and every time someone asked. I ended up working in that job for a bunch of summers and from that point really enjoyed my job. Was it a perfect job? Absolutely not! The reality is that what I focused on changed how I felt about the job. The fact is that our emotions are influenced by our thoughts and beliefs which are influenced by what is repeated in my brain through my own words or other people's words if I hear them enough.

Brainwashing Yourself?

Am I suggesting that you brainwash yourself? Absolutely! Am I suggesting you stifle uncomfortable emotions like anger, grief, and fear? No. Be honest with yourself and if you are feeling terrible, deal with it in an appropriate way (crying, telling someone who is safe to tell, etc.). In my experience it is the people who are always suppressing their uncomfortable emotions who also struggle with PRETENDING they are happy when they aren't. If you aren't happy, admit it to yourself... then work on how you talk to yourself.

Here are some ways you can begin to work on this area of your mindset so that you enjoy more of your time on this planet and get sick a lot less often:

1. Practice gratitude and watch how it affects your mood over a period of time
2. Talk about people, your job, and your current situation in a positive light. Not because it is perfect, but because often things aren't as bad as they sometimes seem.
3. Reframe how you look at experiences and situations: People who become strong in business are often those who are looking at problems as opportunities. On one hand it is terrifying to lose a job even if you didn't enjoy it in the first place... On the other hand, if it allows you the opportunity to do something you are actually passionate about there are positives there. Let the positive things motivate you even while you mourn the loss of your old job and deal with the frustration of putting out new resumes.
4.  Don't complain about something to someone who does not have the ability to fix it or help you with it. Do share difficult situations and emotions with people who are safe to do this with. If you don't have anyone safe to do this with... you need to start making a different kind of friend, but in the meantime pay a therapist to listen.

Summary

Basically what I am saying is that there is a fine line between lying to yourself and learning how to change the way you think about life on one side as well as suppressing emotions or dealing with them in appropriate ways on the other side. What I see around me each and every day is a lot of people who either whine about life or pretend to be happy when they are dying inside. There is a better way, but it takes a lot of practice. I currently have someone in my life who simply doesn't believe me when I say I'm doing well. That's her choice and her paradigm and I'm sad she doesn't currently see that I do have frustrations as well and do deal with them in healthy ways. My rule of thumb regarding uncomfortable emotions and frustrating situations was stated in #4 above.





If you would like to learn more about investing in real estate please contact me at the email address listed at the beginning of this article or go to my website at: www.akerahomes.com/investing-in-real-estate.html