How top producers stay motivated in the middle of a challenge

Hey what’s up guys. This week in California we’re able to go back into a salon to get a haircut. (Although I was able to get my stylist to come to the house a few weeks ago.) And I imagine for many people, the first visit to the salon will be to correct whatever mess was created by the friend who gave them the “corona-cut”!

We’ve been in lockdown long enough for our hair to get to that messy stage if we’ve not tried to cut it at home. Maybe this is more of a guy thing since we tend to keep our hair shorter. But I know the ladies understand because one of my long time private clients, who has the best hair of any woman I know, remarked how long hair is great and short hair is also great, but when you’re in the middle of the two, it really sucks.

Being in the middle of almost anything can be challenging. When you’re in the middle of a diet for your beach body, calorie restriction is no fun. It was much more fun to pick out the new suit you want to fit in, am I right? Or, when you’re in the middle of a transaction, sometimes you can’t wait to get to closing. It’s much more fun to take the listing than it is dealing with unreasonable buyer, isn’t it?

We struggle with the middle not because it can be messy, but because it’s not as exciting as the beginning or the end. When you get a vision about something you’d like in your future, the vision is about the end. The end is when you’re vision is fully realized and it’s naturally inspiring and energizing. The vision of the end fills you with hope.

The beginning is also exciting because when you start something, it feels like you're taking control of your future. Taking action leaves you feeling confident and accomplished. The beginning of something is also before life has had a chance to present any challenges.

I believe that’s why when we are inspired by life to new dreams and goals, the visions are never of the messy middle. If life showed us all we’d have to overcome in order to manifest our new vision, most of us would never even start working toward it.

So I started thinking about where you might be in life and in your business as we work through the reopening stages of the economy. I image some of you are taking the opportunity to hit the reset button and use this time as a do-over for 2020. Maybe you’ve reimagined how you want to work and you have new visions of the end and are just now starting to take action.

Or for some of you, I imagine the you still want what you set out to accomplish in January and the stay-at-home orders have been the very definition of your messy middle.

Either way, if you can remember that the middle is supposed to be messy, you will get through it faster. When you express desire for something, life says “yes, you can have that”. That’s why you feel so excited initially. On some level you know that if you can conceive it, you can achieve it.

The biggest challenge is to remember that life delivers what you want through some sort of adversity. It asks, "You want this improved experience? Okay, yes you can have it. Just fix these problems first." In other words, when you get yourself into the middle of a problem and fix it (which is really to say, help your clients), what you want will be waiting for you at the end.

So when you’re in that middle zone and struggling with the messiness of what’s going on, one way to keep yourself going is to fall back on the basics. For most of the people, that means staying focused on three things: generating leads, scheduling appointments and getting signatures. It’s not sexy like the beginning or the end and it’s not supposed to be. Top producers learn to appreciate the messy middle. They don’t always like it, but they know to lean into it and stay focused on the end goal.

If you’re a baseball fan, you know how important it is to just get on base. The play on a team who is the best at getting on base is the one who starts the batting line up. Getting to first base isn’t as exciting as a home run but saying “that guy always gets on base” is one of the highest complements you can give a player. What I’m saying is, just take things one step at a time and keep a healthy perspective when you’re in the middle of something.

So hey. What does getting on base look like for you? Is it getting yourself booked with new appointments? Getting price reductions on your listing inventory? Whatever it is, drop down and let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear what you can do to make sure you “always get on base”.