Five Habits That Everyone Needs to Adopt Right Now

Welcome back to Brilliant Talks, our free weekly podcast for real estate agents. When it comes to having a successful business, we cannot just isolate our professional lives from our personal lives. Habits are essential to ensuring that we lead balanced lives that move us toward our objectives.

In this session, Mark Rader tells us the five (5) habits we should all be practicing now in order to do just that.

1. Write out your vision and set goals

We all have dreams and goals for our businesses and personal lives. When setting those goals, it is important to reflect and ask ourselves three questions:

• What is it that you want across all the areas of your life (health, finance, business, family, vacation, leisure, etc.)? What do you dream about?
• What are your values? Take it a step further and ask: What are the values of the people you surround yourself with?
• What is holding you back from achieving those goals?

It is important to know what we want to accomplish. But it is even more crucial to identify why we want those things. Our values serve as an operating system that guides our vision for the future we want to achieve. They give us an idea of how we normally function, and how we want to function as we strive for growth, whether in personal or business aspects.

The people we surround ourselves with also play an important role. Do our values align with the values of the company that we keep? Are they pushing us forward toward the growth we desire, or are the people we surround ourselves with holding us back?

It is essential to reassess our relationships as well. The people we allow into our inner circle make a huge impact on our journey to success.

Also, some self-reflection is necessary in order to see how we are holding ourselves back from the ideal version of ourselves we want to be. Sometimes, the person getting in the way of achieving our goals the most is ourselves. Is it a lack of discipline? Do you have wrong mindsets and misconceptions that might be preventing you from living your best life?

Lastly, as far as the execution of the goal, it’s really important to divide your goals for the year into smaller action steps and key results—quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily. 

A lot of us feel overwhelmed by the goals we set, and some quit halfway through, thinking they are impossible. However, you will be surprised at how attainable your goals are if you take them one day at a time, one step at a time.

2. Journaling your day

In my recent interview with Alejandro Navia, the President and Co-Founder of NFTNow, he said that journaling is an act of self-love and the cheapest form of therapy.

Writing down our thoughts, ideas, goals, and dreams helps us not just keep track of the things we’ve done and the things we still need to do, but also allows us to track how far we’ve come from where we started. It gives our abstract thoughts and desires a concrete form that we can revisit, to remind ourselves of the things that matter to us. And it helps us discover patterns and learn more about ourselves, refining the way we think in the process.

In a world where so many things try to demand our time and energy, learning how to prioritize is key. It helps us focus on what matters and makes it easier for us to say no to the noise and distractions around us.

You can use your journal to plan ahead, brainstorm ideas, reflect, and design your life. What our team recommends is that every night you write down three main priorities that you want to focus on for the day ahead.

3. Establishing healthy habits

One cannot emphasize enough that our health is indeed our wealth. Unfortunately, habits that promote good health tend to lag among business owners and real estate agents in this industry.

This includes a healthy diet, exercise, regular doctor visits, and other general health goals, but also habits that promote mental and emotional well-being.

Family time is important. A lot of us suffer from burnout because we don’t carve out enough time for ourselves and the people we love. It is also essential to spend time with your own mind—journaling and meditation are big parts of that. The same is true in carving out time to do the things that we love and bring energy to our lives.

Having morning and evening routines help us get into a rhythm and the right headspace to start and end our days right.

4. Gratitude

In life, those who are thankful are proven to live happier lives. Gratitude exercises help us train our minds to look for the good in the bad and pivot so that we focus on growth instead of the negative situations that happen to us and around us.

Last time, we talked about how negative thinking holds us back, and that practicing gratitude is one of the cures for that. Of course, there are days when it is tough to be grateful, even if there are many things to be thankful for.

That’s why developing gratitude habits such as writing down five things you are grateful for that day and why you are grateful for them is essential to building that muscle, so to speak. Sometimes, linking physical activity to a positive emotional reaction can help trick the mind into producing those happy hormones that allow you to practice an attitude of gratitude.

 When you appreciate how others have helped you, you are more motivated to help others as well.

Going into meetings with that grateful mindset helps you look at things as if someone is coming in prepared to help, thinking, “How can I enhance the lives of the people I’m about to talk to?”, instead of thinking, “What can I get out of this?”

When you are going through tough situations, looking at what you can learn from them helps you adopt an attitude of gratitude, even when it feels like there’s nothing to be grateful for.

5. Replacing negative thoughts with positive thoughts

It is a challenge to look at the bright side when you are going through a rough patch, but if we can start by being more lenient with ourselves and allowing ourselves some grace and space to screw up, we are going to be more forgiving of ourselves—and of others—making it easier to pivot from negative to positive mindsets.

One way to do this is by identifying the difference between guilt and shame.

Guilt is a good thing. It is normal to feel guilty when you mess up, and that guilt works as your motivation to learn from your mistakes and do better next time.

Shame, on the other hand, is detrimental to us. There’s no room for growth and grace in shame. It is all just blaming yourself, the world, the situation, and other people. It is focused more on anger and feelings of wanting to run away from the situation or from taking responsibility.

When we learn to work with guilt, we become accountable to ourselves and others, and it gives us the necessary push, to an extent, to work on ourselves and be better.

Awareness of the way we talk to ourselves and replacing the words we choose to dictate our inner narratives play a significant role too.

Tough times are inevitable, and it is understandable to feel down about them when they come. But practicing these habits helps us gain a deeper awareness of how we function and think, catch ourselves when we become too focused on the bad things, and motivate ourselves by reminding ourselves of what matters, what we can do to turn the tides, and all the things that we can be grateful for, even in the midst of a tough situation.

It helps when you surround yourself with the right people to help keep you accountable. That’s what coaching is for, and if you are interested in looking for coaches in a one-on-one or group setting, we are more than happy to help you achieve your goals. 

Feel free to contact me with questions and concerns.

Have an awesome day!