To My Magnificent Agents, Staff and Friends:
This week one of our real estate sales associates shared an experience with me. He has a listing that has been on the market for two years. The property is a historic mansion located in a rural area. It has an offering price of nearly $1.4 million. Needless to say, there has been a very limited buyer interest since it entered the marketplace. The owners live out-of-state and have periodically threatened to pull the listing. They were visiting the home last week and contacted our associate to meet with them.
As our agent described it, in light of the client’s past “threats,” he feared the worst and as a result his anxiety level went through the roof. In the days leading up to the meeting he became increasingly weighed down by dread and actually “worked himself into a funk about it.” Although he really had no certainty as to what was going to happen, his fear convinced him that the outcome would not be a positive one.
Sound familiar?
According to Psychology Today Magazine, fear is a vital response to physical and emotional danger – if we couldn’t feel it, we couldn’t protect ourselves from legitimate threats. But often we fear situations that are in no way life threatening and thus we hang back and avoid or procrastinate confronting those situations at all. Many times these responses actually lead us to failure, thus creating a self-inflicted fulfillment of what we feared.
Because we are not clairvoyant, uncertainty is a major factor in our experiencing fear. We often don’t know exactly what will happen or what we’ll do next. That’s how life is on both a personal and professional level. Uncertainty can be a wonderful challenge in our lives, sparking creativity. It also makes our lives so much more interesting. But undoubtedly, it can also be seen as threatening and to the degree we allow it, it can potentially undermine our well-being and our performance.
Let’s face it, when we feel threatened quite often it undermines our self-confidence, so in defense we employ strategies to protect our self-image. Unfortunately, one of these may be delaying any action or delaying the task to the last minute. Our unconscious rationale in doing so is to ensure that we have a built-in excuse in case we do fail.
What can we do to overcome this?
When feeling overwhelmed, threatened or fearful by a matter at hand, put your focus on staying on task. At the moment that you think that the best plan of action might be to walk away, press on. Tell yourself that you have confidence in your ability and your capability. Tell yourself with confidence “I may have fear, but I need not be my fear.”
By the way, what happened when our associate actually met with his clients? Here is his answer in his own words:
“Did they threaten, berate or chastise me for not selling their home? Nope. Instead, they were very interested when I showed them the layout for the luxury home magazine that I arranged for their home to appear in. They were pleased to hear that I’ve had their home on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. They were excited to hear that I use “Tags” in my property brochures that I send to prospective buyers. In the end they kept me as their agent and actually lowered the price to under $1 million.”
He concluded, “So I fretted, worried and beat myself up for nothing. Moral of the story? Don’t anticipate the worst – anticipate the best, and it just might happen!”
Have faith.
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
~Frank Herbert, Dune – Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
Have an awe-full weekend!
Bill Bacque