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Whatever the cause, it’s likely we all experience some level of stress on a daily basis.
After all, this is a job where you’re dealing with the hopes, dreams and expectations of a multitude of people, and the drive to achieve can be intense.
A small degree of day-to-day stress is quite normal and can actually be a good thing to get you motivated, however, overwhelming and continual stress can have a negative impact on our physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing.
It’s something we’re all aware of, but despite knowing this, it can be a challenge to overcome some of the symptoms of stress, such as sadness, self-doubt, disappointment, anger, frustration and more.
At times these emotions are short lived. Other times they’re magnified to a point that it really affects you for a prolonged period.
So how can you help manage the stress, without letting it take a toll?
Are you overthinking it?
I’m not an expert in this area, but personally I find one of the major root causes that amplifies my stress levels is the habit of overthinking things.
I have a tendency to mull situations over at length, considering the what-ifs and all the possible scenarios. This leads me to ‘catastrophise’ things as I let my mind explore all the possible negative outcomes that could occur.
Often this turns out to be unwarranted. Yet still I took this path with full knowledge that the chances of things going pear shaped was highly unlikely.
I wasted time, I used up energy, and I enhanced my stress levels ‘tilting at shadows’ and ‘peering through a looking glass’ of possible realities that never actually occurred.
Is the worst that bad?
Let’s be truthful, if we recollect on things we thought would happen in the past, we find that in 99 per cent of those cases nothing eventuated.
And of the 1 per cent that escalated to uncomfortable and beyond, we discovered that, after a period of time and reflection, they weren’t that bad.
Perhaps they even served to teach us a valuable lesson or take us on a new path we’d never before explored.
Real estate is about emotions
In real estate, we deal with lots of situations that involve lots of people.
It’s inevitable that this combination will create stressful situations. There will be times when we have to manage rejection, bounce back after deals fall over, brush off the fact vendors aren’t listening to our advice or handle parties who bring their own personal stress to a complex property sale.
Yes, I can recommend that we all view these situations as ‘lessons’ happening ‘for us’ not ‘to us’ and suggest we take a deep breath, step back and not let them stress us out.
But that’s so much easier said than done.
Some tools in my toolkit
Over a lengthy period in this industry, I’ve accumulated a series of tools that I employ when my stress levels start to ramp up.
The first is to recognise my stress response and acknowledge the fact that I overthink things. It’s worth asking at this point if the worst outcome is possible, probable or unlikely.
Probable is worth pondering further to change what you can. Possible is worth spending a little time considering to identify any simple mitigating strategies that put your mind at rest.
If the negative outcome is unlikely and you’ve done all that I can, then this stressor needs to be lumped into the ‘cross that bridge should you come to it’ category.
I also find the best way to handle these is to remind myself of the many times it’s happened before, including how I felt at that time and how I feel about it now.
Meanwhile, one incredibly valuable tool I employ is putting pen to paper and journaling under the heading ‘download’. I dump all my feelings and stress on the page and find that often opens the release valve while also offering clarity.
It doesn’t matter the technique
The reality is it doesn’t matter the technique you employ to manage stress. What matters is that you find one that works for you.
To do that, I urge you to take the opportunity to reflect on some of your recent and past ‘stress’ times and allow them to reveal how you managed and overcame them.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Manos Findikakis is the CEO of Agents’Agency
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