The truth is, I’m not a fan of the “grind” mentality. I don’t think it’a necessarily pertinent to wake up at 4 a.m. each morning to “take advantage of the day more than others” or follow strict guidelines everyday to reach further. I don’t like the quote, “Don’t complain, just work harder,” etc. I believe in a holistic approach to life, not balancing work and life, they’re one thing. I beileve in listening to your body when it’s time to “grind”, or when it’s time to close your laptop and give yourself space to clear your head.
Why? Because we’re human, and we’re running ourselves into the ground always trying to accomplish more.
Now, does this mean I don’t want a successful career of growth and success? Of course not, I do want that. I want to be successful in real estate, and I want to grow my career, while still enjoying my life. Instead of a work/life balance like the one we see below and hear about all the time, I’m referring to the one that Michael Walters has theorized. He explains how traditionally, people attempt to separate work from their life, and in turn, creating an equal balance between life and work like the image to the right. But the fact of the matter is life is BIG, and work, while important, does not equate to the same weight as the rest of your life. He says, “Instead, let’s shift our paradigm.”
What if we accepted that everything is interconnected? One ball, one sphere, including work. What does this give us? It gives us one piece that is grounded. No longer am I striving to balance, I’m one holistic self.”
When you shift your view to a holistic sense, you get four transformative results.
- Grace
- Awareness
- Momentum
- Empowerment
Let’s break these down a bit more and identify exactly what a healthy path to a successful career can look like.
Grace
“Stop measuring days by a degree of productivity and start experiencing them by a degree of presence.” — Alan Watts
“When you focus on every aspect of your life including work as just one small piece of the sphere, you give yourself grace. Why? “Because of noticing every little shortcoming as an individual issue, you look at the comprehensive sphere, diluting each piece’s magnitude,” says Michael. So instead of things like, “The house is a wreck,” or, “I wasn’t able to work out today,” you instead look at life as one sum. How am I doing as a whole?
Allowing yourself to look at yourself as a sum of all it’s parts, rather than rating each individual piece of your life, gives you more grace. Instead of saying, “I did do this, but I didn’t do that,” you say, “I’m doing pretty good.”
There is always a client that needs to receive a touchpoint from you, a listing that needs updating, or a presentation that needs to be built. At home, there are usually dirty dishes, a bag of old clothes to donate, and the deck that needs refinishing. The goal here is to not criticize yourself for what you haven’t accomplished, but rather, look at your work and life from a holistic perspective and see you rprogress from a summary of all it’s parts.
How are you doing overall?
Awareness
Seeing your life and work as a sum rather than two separate entitites means we allow ourselves to see the importance of each as overall progress in life. When our home life is thriving, our work will benefit. When work is struggling, that is going to bleed into our home life. The notion of claiming that work and life are separate is simply false. I mean, how many of us had a poor day at work and it later affected how we spoke to our partners at the dinner table? If you had a stressful day, it’s going to affect your evening.
“That fact that we are aware we can’t separate our life from our work, or any other ‘balls,’ that means we can see how our choices every day will affect the overall sphere,” says Michael during his talk.
This leads into our next transformative stage, momentum.
Momentum
Now that we understand that work, life, and everything in between fits into one ball, one life — we can understand that when things are overall progressing, we move forward. This is where success comes.
“This concept comes when the decisions we make every day, will move us a step, to another step, to another step, in either direction. Momentum.”
Every day there are choices, almost infinate and constant choices.
- Wake up at 6 am, or 8 am
- Breakfast with fruit and eggs, or pastries
- An afternoon workout, or a drink at a brewery
- A TV dinner, or a night at the table with the family
- The list goes on
One answer will help you. One answer won’t. This answer can vary person by person, but there is a choice. “If you take the forward step, that winds up creating movement forward. Since everything is interconnected, all the balls start rolling with, including work,” says Michael.
Don’t get this momentum twisted. It’s okay to make the “wrong” choice, whatever that means for you. All your progress forward isn’t going to come to a halt if you have one cookie or skip a gym session. The theory here is that that number of positive choices outweigh the negative, and in turn, creates momentum forward. And when there is momentum forward, it’s even easier to continue that momentum. Michael says, “If you start running, it’s easier to stay running after you take the first step.”
When you are focusing on your momentum, you’re no longer focusing on a “balance” of work and life. You’re focusing on positive momentum forward.
Empowerment
Your “ball” of life has momentum, it’s rolling forward. So, what does this mean? Well, it means you’ve reached the final transformative step of empowerment. Michael says, “If we’re free to not be perfect, we are aware we can make choices that will lead us to positive momentum, we are empowered to take more control of our lives. To live more purposefully.”
Suddenly, it’s not about the fact that you didn’t get X, Y, and Z done. It’s not about the fact that you couldn’t make it home in time for family dinner, or you missed your SoulCycle class. It’s about what you can do to take a step forward. If you can get up at 6 am, you’re empowered to go on a morning walk before your coffee. The morning walk has inspired and empowered you to have a healthy salad and iced tea for lunch. Step forward. You feel so good from the nutrients from your lunch and the clarity from your morning walk, you choose to send a few extra emails and make a few more phone calls at work which leads to a new listing. Empowered. Your momentum is going forward.
You had such a good day; you’re empowered to do it all over again tomorrow. Suddenly, you’re not grinding or hustling to get ahead in work. Instead, you’re cultivating a sustainable life that helps you become successful in real estate.
