Today I want to talk about where you are and how you are today. At the beginning of the year I talked to many of you about how important it is to start the year with a clear vision of what you want to accomplish. Remember, clarity of your goals is crucial to being able to achieving them. If you can’t see your goals clearly, you can’t program your mind toward achieving them.
Now that we’re in June and just about to enter the second half of the year, it’s a good idea to take a moment to assess the progress you’ve made so far. Are you where you thought you’d be? Where you ought to be? While making this self-assessment, it’s also just as important, more so, actually, to assess how you are. But first let’s see if you’re moving closer to your ‘peg in the sand.’
Are you on track?
By this time, you should be well on your way to achieving at least some of your goals, if you’ve not already reached a few. Whether it’s obtaining $12,000 per year of passive income, adding that granny flat or getting council permission to build out a duplex, you should be well down the track to making those things happen. Or even if one of your goals was to get yourself educated in real estate investing, you should be able to look at your calendar, see the boot camps, seminars and webinars you’ve attended and tick off that box.
A good way to assess your progress up to now is to open you ‘Peg in the Sand’ journal and look at where you were at the beginning of the year, and where you are now. You should be able to see progress made along the way. Where you do see progress, be sure to acknowledge it in writing and by some kind of personal reward to yourself.
With regards to achievement, I am going to presume that some of you have indeed made much progress. I know this because I talk with you at boot camps and other events, so I know that’s happening with many of you. It’s a jolly good feeling to reach your goals, isn’t it?
But I also know that some of you are not where you want to be and are maybe not as far down the track that you thought you’d be by this time. There might be good reasons for that to be the case. In some instances, a health situation might be preventing you from reaching your goals. Or, if you are on track to achieve your investing goals, good on you!
But in doing so, are you neglecting your personal health and wellbeing?
Life balance
If you’ve been listening to me for any length of time, then you know that I always recommend that along with your ‘peg in the sand’ to define your real estate investing goals, you should also have one for your own personal health goals. By that I mean both physical and mental wellbeing. After all, the whole point of setting yourself free from financial worry is to improve your quality of life. There’s almost nothing more damaging to our human bodies and psyches than the constant stress of financial worry.
In fact, studies have shown that such stress literally ages our minds and our bodies at an advanced rate. When this goes on year after year, it makes you more likely to get sick in one way or another. That’s why changing your life financially also involves changing your life mentally as well.
That’s why changing your mental outlook on things, your attitude about life, about yourself, about what has happened in the past and being able to leave it there, are all important steps of the process of achieving the goals you’ve set for yourself. These are often more difficult to do than we think. But it makes all the difference.
Health more important than wealth
But you must change yourself on the inside if you wish to change your life on the outside. Now, that not only involves adjusting your mental processes, but it also fundamentally adjusting what you put in your body and how you treat your body. I’m not out to become anyone’s nanny, but I am going to tell you that in order lead a balanced life, your health must become a priority in your life.
Say, for instance, that you have achieved your real estate investing goals, but are not healthy, where is the benefit?
Being overweight, having high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels and all the rest cannot make you happy, no matter how much passive income you are getting every month. Let me say that again, but more correctly: Without your health, your wealth means almost nothing. After all, why work hard to get wealth and free time if you’re not around or able to enjoy it?
Therefore, a big part of your goals, one of your ‘pegs in the sand’ needs to be about improving your health. When you are healthy, you will find that your ability to focus greatly improves, your energy increases and your clarity of thought and physical stamina are both enhanced. To achieve your health goals, you may find diets like the evolutionary or the hunter-gather diets to be helpful in cleansing your body and restoring it to the health it deserves.
So, at this point in the year, assess how you are doing in your real estate investing goals and how close you are getting to your ‘peg in the sand.’ Be honest with yourself. Then, ask yourself if you are you eating the right kinds of food that are free from chemical additives, preservatives and other artificial ingredients. Ask yourself if you are getting enough exercise on a daily basis, if you are getting enough sleep, and if you are putting enough water in your system on a daily basis. Again, be honest with yourself.
I can’t stress how important this is. I know because I’ve done it myself–losing 18 kilos in the process, and feeling much better because of it. When you get right down to it, how you are is much more important than where you are on the financial scale. Fortunately, there is no reason you can’t be physically, mentally and financially healthy. You can have it all and enjoy it all. It’s your choice.