Have you ever made big plans for your real estate investing business, only to fail to act on them? Or maybe you started with a bang and kept your motivation for a few days, then suddenly lost interest?

It’s easy to lose motivation after the initial excitement wears off. However, if you want to be successful in building a portfolio of real estate investments for passive income, it’s important to keep going. We all know, and know all too well, the deals aren’t going to get done themselves.

What’s Your Stopping Strategy?

While it seems obvious that a ‘stopping strategy’ is completely counter-productive to achieving your goals in real estate, what’s not so obvious is that you have one or how it was developed.

A ‘stopping strategy’ is a program your mind runs when you hit a place internally (mentally and/or emotionally) where an inner dialogue creates a story about why it’s a good time to quit.  It’s not something that you put together by choice and yet it’s a way your subconscious mind/beliefs do their job of keeping you right where you are.  In effect, it’s like hammering on the brakes in your car as you’re attempting to cross a busy intersection quickly to avoid oncoming traffic.

When your private ‘stopping strategy’ rears its ugly voice and starts to list all the reasons why you don’t have time to start your business, you don’t have the money, there are no good deals available right now, success is easy for other people and yet not “you” — and you listen to it — you stop.  While the job of this programming is to keep you safe and exactly where you are, what it’s really doing is keeping you from having what you want.  Nothing outside of yourself is stopping you.  You are stopping you.

Understand what starts your stopping strategy:

#1.  The planning phase is WAY more fun than the execution phase. Sitting alone at night and making plans for the future can be an exciting time. Everything seems possible, because you’re only limited by your imagination at that point.  When the sun comes up in the morning though, it’s time to actually get busy. It all seems a little more daunting and less enjoyable when it’s time for the rubber to hit the road.

#2.  You lose track of the end result. Remind yourself of the reward at the end of your journey.  Take control of your thoughts. Catch yourself early in the process of thinking negative thoughts and redirect your focus to something more positive. It takes time to develop this ability. The key is to notice quickly that your thoughts are going off the rails.

#3.  Your goal isn’t really yours. Many of us choose goals that are acceptable to the world at large. It might be having a certain income level or owning your home in the “right” zip code. Maybe your goal is totally mismatched to your real desires or temperament.  Ensure that you’ve chosen goals that match your interests and true desires.

#4.  You feel uncomfortable and aren’t dealing with it effectively. Of course, it’s uncomfortable to do anything new. Whether it’s creating your first offer to present, beginning to learn the legalities of being a landlord, or running the numbers for a wholesale deal, it’s going to be uncomfortable. It’s important to deal with this discomfort effectively.  Expect to feel uncomfortable. Have a plan for working through it. If you’re making changes to your life, discomfort is the norm.

#5.  You have too many negative thoughts. Negative thoughts are paralyzing. Negative thoughts will make you rationalize that you should quit. Though it doesn’t always feel like you have control over your thoughts, you do. You can choose what you want to think about.

#6.  You’re stuck in your habits and routines. The older you are, the more challenging it can be to break out of your established patterns. We find comfort in our traditional routines, and our brains become hardwired to repeat them. You’ll need to create new habits and routines if you want to change your behavior and your results.

While you can expect that at times your motivation will falter, be prepared to deal with it.  Along the way to your goal however, it eventually becomes obvious that the biggest enemy you have is yourself. Between your limiting beliefs and negative habits, there really isn’t anyone in your way besides yourself. We often doubt our ability to succeed in the future based on our previous struggles.

We all get it’s not always easy to conquer obstacles. It means persevering when things get tough, stepping out of our comfort zones and resolving not to give up.  Sometimes we will tell ourselves it’s just easier to stay in our own little world.

However, with all the years I’ve had in businesses (almost all of them as an owner) I’ve learned one huge lesson which is that being able to conquer obstacles is the key to building a life you love.  Pressing on when things get tough requires some serious, um,  “boldness”.