The biggest obstacle that I have seen hold so many people back from achieving what they want in life is Fear.
Fear has been hindering people’s desires for countless years. The nasty role it plays in destroying people’s dreams has been written about in countless books.
One of the most popular of these books is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.
It has been my observation that an individual can defeat fear. It takes concentrated effort, and a high degree of awareness, however, it can be done.
Often times, fear holds people back from investing in real estate. I see people who are interested in investing in property, clearly understand the benefits of such an action, however, they get consumed with fear and they end up never taking any action.
This is important to note, as fear at some point will rear it’s ugly head and try to destroy your plans, no matter what they may be.
For those of you that are looking to purchase your first rental property, I have some advice as to how you can overcome the fear that you may be experiencing.
1) Identify what specifically you are afraid of
By doing this, it helps us to further understand how we can overcome our fear. You can identify your fear by simply sitting down and writing out a list of all of the things that you are not afraid of with respect to buying a rental property, and you can also write down all of the things that you are afraid of. Take a piece of paper and draw a vertical line down the middle of the page. On the left side list all of the things that you are not afraid of, and on the right side, list all of the things that you are afraid of. This essentially will be your pros and cons list of investing in real estate. Once you have identified your fears, you can take action to start overcoming them. Fear is often overcome by taking baby steps.
2) Take baby steps to overcome your fear
For example, your biggest fear about purchasing your first rental property may be that you are afraid that you will not be able to find tenants for your property, and that your property will sit vacant. Since you fear that your property will be vacant, you are afraid that you will have to pay the mortgage out of your own personal funds on this rental property, and the thought of this scares you.
This is a legitimate fear that a lot of new investors have. Here is how you combat this fear. You have to take small baby steps in order to overcome this. First, reach out and start making contact with other people that own rental properties. Ask them how they have found their tenants in the past. Ask them what challenges and problems they may have experienced in finding these tenants. Pick up tips and advice from these people as to what has worked for them in the past, and also what has not worked for them very well. Ask them what they did when their rental property was vacant, and the steps that they took in order to find another tenant.
Start to network and establish contact with Property Managers in your investment area. Ask these property managers the process that they take when they are trying to find tenants for a rental property. Also, when the tenants decide that they are going to move out of a rental property, also ask them what proactive steps they take in order to ensure that the rental property is rented out again quickly, and so that it is not vacant for a long period of time.
3) Stay in motion
It is one thing to take baby steps. However, it is equally important to make sure that you keep on ‘stepping’. By this, I mean, make sure that you are continually taking action to defeat your fear. Fear has a tendency of creeping up on us when we least expect it. Even if we have already taken some steps to help subdue our fears, if we stop taking these steps, such as the ‘baby steps’ talked about in the previous point, the fear can come back and fully consume us. I compare this to walking up a downwards moving escalator. Have you ever seen someone trying to walk or run up a downwards-moving escalator? I have seen this sometime in malls, and airports. In this example, the downwards-moving escalator represents our fear. We as individuals have to do our best to run up the escalator, and not stop running. When we reach the top of the escalator, we have defeated our fears. If we stop moving, and stand still, the escalator will take us all the way to the bottom. If we stop moving, we are letting our fears get the better of us. As such, our fear will consume us at this point. The long story short is that we have to always stay in motion. Never stop running up the fear escalator!
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3) Keep positive
While you are trying to combat your fear, only associate yourself with people that are encouraging you. Eliminate those people from your life that bring negativity. You do not need to be surrounded by people that will make you doubt yourself. Surround yourself with people that are going to support you, encourage you, and help you defeat your fear.
4) Repeat
Once you have overcome your fear, you have to take note of all the things that you did to achieve this. This is a noteworthy accomplishment so do not discount your achievement here. This however is not the end of your journey; rather it is only just the beginning. Fear never fully goes away, and it always seems to creep back into people’s lives. So if you know what you have done in the past to overcome certain fears, take note of that. Once the fear sneaks back into your life, repeat the steps that you initially took in order to overcome this fear again.
