Enjoy Your Real Estate Profession

Many people look at those who are successful in any walk of life and think it must take an extraordinary amount of personal sacrifice and discipline to achieve that success, especially financial success.  They think it must take an extraordinary type of person with an iron will to do it.  So they think that to be successful is too difficult and not worth so much sacrifice, and so they think they’re better off than the wealthy.  To them, it’s better to have a steady paycheck, a few comforts and moderate happiness rather than being wealthy and miserable because of all the effort it took to become wealthy and stay wealthy.

In reality, these people are projecting their own opinions onto the successful and not understanding how successful people really are.  These people often have careers they don’t truly find satisfying on a personal level.  They may even find their job sheer drudgery, simply a means to an end (IE money) and nothing else.  Some people pay lip service to loving their jobs, but if you gave them the choice of doing the job and getting paid or sitting at home and still getting paid the same amount, most of these people would quit their job in a second.

I think the people who are truly blessed in life are the ones whose work is their passion.  The phrase “Thank God It’s Friday” never even enters their consciousness.  Now how do you know if someone truly loves their job?  It’s very simple: they’d rather work at it rather than do almost anything else.  It’s not even about the money to them, as many  think it is.

Imagine how different life is for such people.  Imagine jumping out of bed every morning and actually doing what you love to do all day.  You’ll never hear such people moaning on a Monday morning when the alarm clock goes off, hitting that snooze bar to avoid work for just a few more minutes.  These people never rely every morning on one of our culture’s socially accepted drugs: caffeine.  They never feel the need to censor what they say in the workplace because of office politics or because of the pecking order.  People who love their work are truly free.  People who don’t love their work often will never even know they lived their entire working life in relative bondage.

So the big question is: how do I make work enjoyable?  You make work enjoyable when it’s a reflection of you.  Not what other people think you should be, or some ideal you think you need to live up to.  Your work should be exactly who you are.  NO compromise.  Now that can mean it’s working at something you love, or making your creativity manifest, or (ideally) both.

So how can you apply this to your real estate career?  You should focus on an aspect of real estate that you personally love and adore.  Do you love your waterfront condo in downtown Toronto that has a great, panoramic view of the lake and the city?  Then become a waterfront condo specialist.  Do you love the neighborhood you live in?  Then become a specialist on your neighborhood and focus all your efforts on selling real estate in your area.

If you love your work, you’ll be amazed at how much more successful you’ll become professionally and personally.  You’ll then understand why work is never “work” to those who love what they do.