Get Out of Your Own Way

In this episode I tell you how to stop sabotaging your potential by getting out of your own way.

I explain the importance of:- 

• Forgiving yourself for past habits like procrastination
• Reprogramming your mind so hard tasks become easier
• Rewarding yourself for taking action
• Making yourself accountable for achieving your goals.

This episode is brought to you by M2 Morninga.  www.m2moringa.com.au

Visit our website at www.milliondollaragent.live and email me at sandra@milliondollaragent.info

Transcript

Episode 16

Hey, Hey, are you in sales? And you want to know how to smash that glass ceiling. Do you want to make more money than you ever thought was possible? You're in the right place. My name's Sandra Carder. I've been in commercial real estate for over two decades, and I know how to sell. I'm going to teach you the habits, the formulas, the tips, the tricks, and the tools that you will need to be a superstar salesperson in whatever field you're in.

So, sit back, relax, tune in and listen to my podcast million-dollar agent and let's smash some glass ceilings together. This episode is brought to you by M2 Moringa. Hey, Hey, million-dollar agents at Sandra again, and welcome to episode 16. Now this episode, we're going to talk about getting out of your own way. Now, what does this mean?

Often, we sabotage our potential by not doing something because we overanalyse that means we're overthinking it and we are creating excuses and we're creating blocks to actually achieving the things we want to achieve. These things could be anything from achieving a goal you want to achieve something that you've set for yourself.

It could be an advancement in your career. It might be going for a promotion. It might be having a completely new change of career where you've got to step out of what you're doing and face the fear and actually go and start a new career. And it might be getting into commercial real estate, which, you know what?

It can seem super scary because you're taking yourself completely out of your comfort zone and there's no safety net and it's absolutely terrifying, but this is what life is about. You need to make these drastic changes. If you want to have the changes in your life, it's that old saying, if you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to keep getting what you're getting.

So, if you want to aim higher and you want to spread your wings and make a lot of money, particularly in sales, you're going to have to take the leap and stop waiting for things to be perfect before you make any changes. So, for instance, if you're building a business, you're starting a business and you're waiting for the website to be perfect or the logo to be perfect, or you're thinking of having a career change and you want to get into a particular sales area, like real estate.

So, you were waiting for the economy to be perfect. Are you waiting for interest rates to come down or are you waiting for some external force to give you a sign? That's not going to happen. You cannot control the external influences around you, you can only control yourself. So, stop worrying about that. That's just white noise. 

You need to get out of your own way and get started. When I first started this podcast and you probably can hear it in my episode one and my intro, I couldn't even use the equipment that I used to record with. I'd never edited a podcast. I never recorded a podcast. I'd never used garage band in my life.

I had no idea what I was doing.  I had to learn on the go, but rather than get it perfect. If you listen to episode one and two, they're pretty scratchy and they're pretty cliquey. And I realized that I couldn't wait for it to be perfect. I just had to publish it, get it out there, get started and let it evolve.

And hopefully that's what it's doing. A friend of mine who told me I should do a podcast was actually the one that told me to get out of my own way because he said, you've got some great content. You need to get it into a podcast. You need to do a podcast. And I'm like, really? Okay, if you say so, but, you know, it was scary at first, but it's like anything, everything is scary until you do it.

You got to face the fear and do it anyway. I don’t know who said that originally, but I've seen it around, a lot. Just you have to put your big girl or big boy pants on and get on with it. There's lots of things that we have to do and as salespeople, that challenge us every single day and it can be terrifying, but once you do it, you feel so good about it.

So, stop procrastinating and start doing things that count and make you money. No matter how terrifying they are. When we procrastinate, we make excuses and these excuses are stopping you making money. If you're sitting down and you're getting lost in a whole lot of tasks that are, don't actually make the money, but you feel busy, then you know what you are in your own way.

If you are not making a phone call, because you're nervous about how it's going to go but that phone call could potentially make you a lot of money or get you a listing or get you a deal or get you a client or a customer that's going to make a huge difference to your career. But you're too terrified to make that call get out of your own way.

Being successful comes down to confidence. The more you exercise, your get out of your own way muscle, the more confident you're going to become. When you make these calls that you've been procrastinating about, because they're terrifying, you are going to get better and better at it. You're going to build that muscle.

You might have clients that you have to confront face to face, and that is terrifying. And I experience that too. You know, you've got to, sometimes you might have had a falling out with a client or you might have had something go pear shaped or they might have sent you a toxic email and you're still reeling from that.

But then you've got to go and see that client face to face and you know what, we're only human and I've had to do that myself just last week. Go and see the color of somebody's eyes after we've had a big blow up via email and, it’s tough but once you've done it, you feel fantastic and you're getting out of your own way and you're getting on with the job and you will become more confident as you go.

What are some ways that we can overcome this fear factor, this procrastination, this getting in your own way problem? Well, first of all, you need to forgive yourself for the historic procrastination that you've had in the past, because we are all guilty of it, but you need to start with a clean slate and forgive yourself what you've done historically.

And don't label yourself as a procrastinator. And don't think it is your default that, “oh, I'm a procrastinator and I can never get stuff done.” Don't think like that anymore. Start fresh. You're not a procrastinator. You're a doer. You're getting out of your own way. You're going to get stuff done. You're going to start those things that are going to make you a lot of money.

You're going to take on those challenges. You are going to dig deep and just get stuff done. Can you imagine we are the only people that can get away with calling ourselves what we call ourselves. If someone else called you a procrastinator, you'd be mortally wounded. And it's like lots of things we say to ourselves, in our heads, we are pretty awful to ourselves and that's getting in your way, getting in your own way, by telling yourself you're something telling yourself you're a procrastinator or you're lazy, or you're not successful or you're not good enough. Whatever happened to you, historically to make you think those things about yourself, whatever happened in your childhood, or maybe when you first got into the work industry and somebody ran you down or said, you're never going to make it in this industry. You're never going to be good enough that's not for them to decide. You can set your own destiny by reprogramming your mindset to be a successful person, a superstar agent, a million-dollar agent, a million-dollar salesperson. Stop labelling yourself as somebody that cannot do these things, because anything is possible.

If you just believe you can do it. And the only reason you're not being successful, if this is the case is because you're telling yourself you can't. So, you need to get out of your own way. What else can you do to prevent this procrastination and actually get things done that need to be done. You have to commit to the task.

You have to be 100% committed to the task and you have to G yourself up for something. Now, if there's something really terrifying that you've going to do, and you've going make this phone call and it's a cold call and it's a big deal. And the person on the other end is somebody that you're just completely terrified of.

And you don't know how that's going to go. And you're totally fearful of the rejection by that client. Psych yourself up. I do star jump. So, I jump up and down. I'll put a good tune on I'll dance around my office and I'll get my vibe up so high that when I make that call, I'm still buzzing from that. You know, they can pick it up and I'm in a good mood and that transfers down the line to the person I'm talking to and it never goes bad, I promise you because you can always find something good to say. 

If you are upbeat people want to talk to you, because they've probably been dealing with someone in the office who's been a bit of a pessimist and there's a bad vibe and you've just switched it up for them.

As long as you have that energy and you are bringing the energy. You're not going to have a bad call. So, trust me, it's a good trick. It's probably a whole topic for another podcast on how to make those calls. And I actually want to record some cold calls for you and put these on my website so that you can listen to them and see how I do it and see how they go and see how you can redirect any negative energy that's coming from a new prospect.

so how else can we make sure that we are doing these things we need to do, give yourself a reward when you've done it, whatever floats your boat, if it's a really big deal and you get the job or you get the listing, it might be, “I'm going to go have a massage, or as simple as I'm going to have a chocolate biscuit or I'm going to have a beer or a glass of wine when I get home,” not that I would recommend doing that. Whatever floats your boat, give yourself a reward. What this does is it reinforces in your brain and your subconscious mind that doing these difficult things are actually pleasurable because you've rewarded yourself for it. And so, it's not going to seem so difficult the next time that you do this.

What else can we do? You can make yourself accountable by telling somebody else that you are going to do this particular thing and then get them to check up on you. So, you need to say it could be to your partner. It could be to a colleague, or it could be to your boss today. I'm going to do this deal or I'm going to call this client or I'm going to do this particular thing, or I'm going to quit my job and I'm going to start a commercial real estate agency, or I'm going to start in commercial real estate, whatever it is, make it accountable.

So, somebody says to you at the end of the time period, you've set… did you, do it? because if you know, they're going to ask you, you don't want to be saying no, I didn't. I'm a big sock and I'm a procrastinator surprised how accountability actually makes you get the thing done. Because it's about saving face and you're going to have to not only be accountable to yourself, but someone else now knows about that, so it's a really good way to do it. 

If it's a really big task and it's something you can't do in one hit, there's that old saying about eating the elephant one bite at a time, and that's what you need to do. You need to break this task down into smaller sections so that you can get it started, get out of your way and get it started.

So, write down the task into section, say it's a starting a new business for instance, and you know, in your head, you need to do all of these things, like save your domain name and engage somebody to do the logo and start the website and all of those other things, write them down and just get them started one bite at a time.  

if you have a dream and you want to start the dream, you need to start doing things about it. You need to take action and massive action. If you just sit there and dream, it won't happen. Get out of your way. Start taking action regardless of the size of the task. One of the best ways you can avoid procrastinating and getting on with the task is to minimize any distractions that are going to come your way.

This includes popups from emails, Facebook on your phone, start turning off all the notifications on your phone. If somebody really needs you, they're going to give you a phone call. If it's an emergency, nobody's going to send you an email. Nobody's going to send you a text message. You can go and check your emails on your computer.

You can go and check them on the phone when you're ready, but stop with the popups. This is also a time saving tool, but it stops procrastinating because what happens is you get distracted with these popups and you go off on another tangent and you go and do something else. 

If you've got a major task to do, you need to focus. You need to clear everything else away that's going to potentially interrupt what you need to do. Distractions are really easy way to procrastinate because you just go, “oh, I'll just go off and do that. Or I'll just respond to that email now” and put down what you're meant to be doing.

You have to stop doing that because it does really make it easy not to do what you need to do and still feel busy. Busy is not productive people. I think I've said this in another podcast. It might be actually in a video blog, but being busy does not mean you're productive. You need to do the things that are going to make you money. Decluttering your life is another excellent way of getting out of your own way.

What I do every morning, I clear my desk from the mess in the aftermath from the day before. I'm starting with a clean slate. I'm starting with a clean mind. I'll give the floor a bit of a vacuum. I'll burn some incense and get rid of any bad Juju from the day before. And that sounds a bit fruit free, but I've been there before, so I'm not going to apologize for that.

But it just gives you a nice, fresh start for the day, and you can forget about anything bad that happened the day before if you had a bad call. So be it new day, fresh start. No, don't carry it forward, but if you've got mess all over your desk and it is a carry on from a bad day, even a carry on from a good day.

You want to just get rid of that and have a declutter and a fresh start less is more because it makes you feel like anything is possible and it's exciting and your day is new and you can do anything you can take over the world. And you're not just putting out fires continuously. You want to be thinking like what's the next opportunity 

A deal falls over, don't take it into the next day. Start again and go. I learnt my lesson with that and these are the things I did wrong and now I'm going again and the world is my oyster. Another way to get out of your own way is to stop worrying about what everybody else is doing and think that if somebody's doing something, then you can't do that because it's already been done.

That is the biggest mistake people make. Is they think that if they haven't done it yet, and they see somebody else's doing it, then they shouldn't start it. It's too late, they've missed the boat. No, there's plenty for everybody. It doesn't matter. You need to just get out of your home way and get on with it.

Success is easy, but a lot of people don't take the steps because of that fear that it's been done before. Oh, well, I'm not inventing the wheel. You don't need to invent the wheel, make another wheel, make it better, make it prettier, make it a different color, make it square. I don't care. Just stop using this as an excuse to not get started because you can see somebody else's done it or that you think they're more successful or they've done it better

and what's the point.  just do it anyway. We are all very unique and the things that seem very natural to you are normal and obvious. Somebody else is probably looking at you and going, “wow, I wish I could be like you” and you don't even know it. So, whatever your unique talents are, whatever you’re really good at, you need to focus on those things and leverage off those things, because it's not always something that's obvious.

You are taking it for granted. So, make sure you are aware of how good you are. I could keep talking about ways to get out of your own way all day long, but I'm going to wrap it up. So, let's summarize what we need to do to get out of our own way. First of all, you've going to stop waiting for everything to be perfect.

You've going to stop worrying about the external influences. You can't control the external influences. You can only control what you do, get it good. It doesn't have to be perfect and get started. You need to forgive yourself for the past. If you see yourself and perceive yourself to be a procrastinator or you're lazy or you're unsuccessful, or you're not good enough.

You need to forgive yourself for those views of yourself and start with a clean slate. You need to reprogram your mindset and not label yourself as something that you do not want to be. You need to reinvent yourself. It's what you want to be. You want to be a superstar sales person. You want to be a million-dollar agent.

You want to take over the world and you have to see yourself as that person. The biggest thing you can do. The most important thing you can do to get out of your own way is stop procrastinating, start doing things that need to be done, commit to the task ways of making sure this happen is make yourself accountable.

Let somebody else know you need to do that task so that they are the ones saying to you, have you done it? And then once you've done it, reward yourself, treat yourself so that doing these hard tasks becomes enjoyable because your subconscious mind is going to tell you it's a good thing. You're reprogramming yourself that it's an enjoyable thing to do this hard task that you take on.

You get a kick and you you'll get an adrenaline rush from it because it'll be a challenge to you. And you know, that there'll be light at the end of the tunnel and a reward. Another good way to prevent procrastination is to minimize distractions and declutter your life.

Start with a clean desk, clean mind, clear slate, anything is possible. You can take over the world, stop worrying about what everybody else is doing. Just because something's been done before. Doesn't mean you can't do it yourself and you can't do it better. And even if you do it, not as good as that person, just do it anyway. You need to take action.

If you want changes in your life and you want to be a superstar, you need to take action without action… there is nothing. It's just a dream. You need to set your goals and you need to take action and make them happen. Now, remember my friend, we are all super unique. Now you have things about you that other people admire and envy and they think, wow, I'd love to be just like that.

And you probably don't even realize it. What you need to do is have a good, hard look at yourself and tap into those things that make you different from everybody else. Find out what your strengths are and you need to leverage off. And use them to your advantage and get out of your own way. So that's a wrap for episode 16.

Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate it and I would be so grateful if you could please leave me a review just to click, give me five stars that takes like no seconds at all. And if you are kind enough, if you could just write me a review as well, because that helps me out immensely and I will be your best friend forever.

Anyway, my name's Sandra Carder. I'm a commercial agent. You can find me on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and LinkedIn under Sandra Carder Commercial Agent, keep selling hard. Get out of your own way. Stop procrastinating and get started and smash that glass ceiling. This episode was brought to you by M2 Moringa.