From the Book: Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff
Part 22. Repeat to Yourself, "Life Isn't an Emergency"
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22. Repeat to Yourself, "Life Isn't an Emergency"
In some ways, this strategy epitomizes the essential message of this book. Although most people believe otherwise, the truth is, life isn't an emergency.
I've had hundreds of clients over the years who have all but neglected their families as well as their own dreams because of their propensity to believe that life is an emergency. They justify their neurotic behavior by believing that if they don't work eighty hours a week, they won't get everything done. Sometimes I remind them that when they die, their "in basket" won't be empty!
A client who is a homemaker and mother of three children recently said to me, "I just can't get the house cleaned up the way I like it before everyone leaves in the morning." She was so upset over her inability to be perfect that her doctor had prescribed her anti-anxiety medicine. She was acting (and feeling) like there was a gun pointed at her head and the sniper was demanding that every dish be put away and every towel folded - or else! Again, the silent assumption was, this is an emergency! The truth was, no one other than she had created the pressure she was experiencing.
I've never met anyone (myself included) who hasn't turned little things into great big emergencies. We take our own goals so seriously that we forget to have fun along the way, and we forget to cut ourselves some slack. We take simple preferences and turn them into conditions for our own happiness. Or, we beat ourselves up if we can't meet our self-created deadlines. The first step in becoming a more peaceful person is to have the humility to admit that, in most cases, you're creating your own emergencies. Life will usually go on if things don't go according to plan. It's helpful to keep reminding yourself and repeating the sentence, "Life isn't an emergency."
How Much Of Our Own Stress Do We Cause?
I think that it’s safe to say that we create the majority of our own stress. Each day we make decisions that will positively or negatively impact us the following day. Even the decisions that we don’t make will have an impact. In some cases the decisions we don’t make have a larger impact on our lives than the bad decisions than we do make.
With this notion in mind, it seems that the key to reducing our stress would be to make informed decisions today that will put us in a better position for the decision that we’ll be faced with tomorrow. And probably the most important idea is that we need to be ready to take action!
If we were to put our options for making a decision into a formula, it might look like this….
Informed Decision + Action = X
Uninformed Decision + Action = X
Informed Decision + Inaction = X
Uninformed Decision + Inaction = X
Which formula do you think would result in the most stress? Which formula would result in the least amount of stress?
As Real Estate professionals we’re constantly expecting people to make decisions like…
Are you ready to make an offer?
Are you ready to sell?
Are you willing to increase your offer?
Are you willing to accept less for your home?
We must understand that we usually won’t know where a person is at mentally, so we must ask questions to determine their mindset before establishing a “sense of urgency” for ourselves and our team. This is the case especially when working with investors.
You’ll get the investors that will say: “I need 10 houses by the end of the month!”, a good follow up question to that statement would be: Why? The investor may have a great reason for creating this sense of urgency, and maybe she doesn’t.
The same goes for all us and our “emergencies”. Sometimes we’ll have a good reason, for our urgency. It’s those times that we don’t have a good reason that extra stress is created for nothing. Some people walk around with more emergencies in their head than a 911 Call Center and that’s not good.
Take a moment to relax and weigh your options then make an informed decision. It’s easier said than done, and we’re never going to always get it right….but do what you have to do to eliminate the unnecessary emergencies in your mind, ya dig?
~Matthew
Let’s make today a great day and and Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff.
