Just do it...

“I don’t think anything is unrealistic if you can do it.” (Mike Ditka). Yogi might have put it slightly differently, maybe “Don’t say it can’t be done, if you can do it – just do it.” Things that are sometimes labeled as unrealistic, such as personal goals in athletics or maybe business goals, are usually just stretches that one may not have bought into yet or may not believe are achievable. Many times the difficulties imagined in reaching an “unrealistic” goal are just that – imagined. Some people have an uncanny knack for throwing up imagined obstacles as a way to avoid even trying – they are usually labeled as pessimists. Some have just the opposite bent, imagining and attempting things well beyond their apparent skills or capabilities or perhaps in the face of great odds– these are the optimists of the world.

So, who is happier in the end, the pessimist who never tries because he/she believes that they can’t accomplish some goal, or the optimist who may try and try and try again to reach a goal that remains just out of reach? There are a number of classic sayings that would lead one to believe that it is better to have tried and filed than never to have tried at all. The optimist even finds some comfort in the learning from his/her failures and continues to make adjustments to the approach or technique that they are using to achieve the goal. The pessimist might adjust the goal down to be in line with his/her performance or abandon the goal altogether.

So how are you dealing with the struggles that most are going through to achieve success in the current real estate market? Have you learned and adapted and kept on trying, or have you given up and decided to sit out the recession and wait until the market comes back to you? Look around you and you will see both types of agents in most companies. Whom do you wish to emulate? Who seems happier to you? We can’t all be unbridled optimists, but perhaps we can learn from them and try to emulate some of their traits and practices. Who knows, maybe some of that enthusiasm will rub off on you; and then you’ll become a role model for some other struggling agent.