Transcription

“Comfort actually gives you the illusion that you have certainty when in reality, nothing could be further from the truth.“ 

Intro

Well, hello everyone. It’s Bernadette and I’m back with my very first episode for 2021 of She Renovates podcast. Now, before I get into it, I want to let you know that we are running a free masterclass on the 12th of January that’s designed to help you get into gear to get epic results in 2021.

Personally, I have set some hefty goals for the year and my whole community is in action getting ready to really nail their goals in 2021. I am running  this session entitled Renovating 2021 6 Strategies To Go From Zero to 100K in 2021. Now please don’t think this is a get rich quick thing because it’s not. But I have recently demonstrated that being able to achieve a hundred thousand profit in less than 12 months is very achievable.

The project that we just completed took six weeks, the actual renovation, they owned the property for three months before it went back to market and that’s achieved just over 100,000 in profit. So it absolutely is possible but what you do need is you need to have a repertoire of strategies to be able to adapt to the market. A changing market is nothing new. We need to assume that the market will change in order to move forward safely and effectively.

Also, I’m going to be talking about where the opportunities are in renovating right now, the skills that you need to embrace to maintain your goals while keeping risk to a minimum, how women are hardwired to be more efficient and more effective renovators and how to build a personal plan to take you from zero to 100,000 in the next 12 months.

If you would like to join that training as I said, it’s on the 12th of January, just head over to www.theschoolofrenovating.com/100k. So that’s www.theschoolofrenovating.com/100k.

Okay. Let’s get into the episode.

Bernadette: Today I’m going to be talking about comfort. It’s probably the main reason people don’t actually get to live their dream because there’s this silent killer going on in the background and that’s comfort.

Comfort actually kills motivation. It kills productivity and as a result, it kills your dreams. This shows up in all areas of life. And of course today, I’m going to be talking about how it impacts your renovation dreams. I will also touch on other areas of life. It is the biggest  hurdle to get over when you make a decision to live a different life, to what you’ve been living up to this point. And so I want to give you some really practical ways of getting over it and getting into your dream life.

I call it the silent killer because comfort actually gives you the illusion that you have certainty when in reality, nothing could be further from the truth. So let’s talk about some of the areas where you may be experiencing comfort and it could be inhibiting your potential for living the magic.

So I read a quote by T. Harv Eker and what he said was, “Comfort kills. If your goal in life is to be comfortable, I guarantee two things. First, you’ll never be rich. And second you’ll never be happy. Happiness doesn’t come from living a lukewarm life. Always wondering what could have been. Happiness comes as a result of being in our natural state of growth and living up to our fullest potential.”

Those words, ‘living a lukewarm life’ just really resonated with me. It’s certainly not something I aspire to and I’m pretty sure if you’re listening to this podcast, you don’t either.  But it is a problem and I’m going to talk about where I have seen it and also  wherever I’ve experienced it. One of the really common things is, when you get into sort of a rut, but you see that as being sort of Nirvana.  Basically your life is comfortable. You have sufficient income from your job or  your husband or partners are higher earners. You’ve got everything that you need to live the life that you want now. But, you know, that ahead of you at that time when you’re not going to be working anymore, or at that retirement age that you won’t have that same income. But rather than step out of your comfort zone, you just don’t want to go there. There’s this sense of comfort  that’s actually paralysing you, that  life’s good, you’ve got it the way you want it. To change that we’ll take something of you and it’s just not something that you’ve got in you at the moment. So that’s a really, really common problem.

It’s not even in people that do have good incomes. I’ve even seen it in people who are really just living in existence. So might be, working part time, might be on a pension and just got enough to get by, but that’s where they’re at.

The really sad thing is that often it’s not uncommon to have big dreams and those big dreams actually keep you buoyed up, keep you feeling good about yourself. However, if you’re not acting on those dreams, then they’re never going to come to fruition. The dreams are almost adding to the paralysis and the comfort zone.

Often with goals, it’s not really the achieving of the goal that transforms your life, it’s who you have to become to be able to achieve it. So it’s that transformation that happens in you.

Now, I absolutely know what it is to feel paralysed by comfort but like you, but like you, I’m someone who wants more out of my life than  what a comfortable life will offer me. I have forced myself to step out of that.

I was doing some reading in preparation for this episode, and I was reading a piece that was written by a person called Ran Zilca. He argues that being too comfortable  won’t foster the desire and the ambition you need to go after your dreams. But he also argues that in the short term, we believe that comfort is more important, but by choosing comfort, overtaking risks is what leaves many of us with regrets in the long run.

Now I’m sure you’ve heard those reports from people who are on their deathbed and  sharing what the regrets that they have from their life.  Almost always  it’s not actually stepping out, not acting on their dreams, not taking a chance.

I’m not for a minute suggesting you go out and take unnecessary risks. However, life is a risk and I always look at risks as something that you manage. There are irresponsible risks and then there are calculated risks. I like to operate in the zone of the latter.

You could be really comfortable in your job. You could have been in the same job for years, not like the back of your hand. So really going to work is about just turning up and  when there is so much more available.

I was having this conversation with our youngest daughter, Grace, the other day. She’s just started out in her working career. She completed a degree in advertising and she’s starting a new job this week and she said at the dinner table the other night how her goal was to have a pay rise within six months. And of course, you know, being the mother that I am, I sort of started highlighting the fact that rather than focusing on the pay rise, maybe focusing on being an extraordinary employee in her role might be a better goal to which I was boooed very quickly because clearly that  didn’t need saying.

But I do think when you’ve been doing the same job for years and years that you can get into a rut and be just turning up and really not being fully present to that role and to the people that you work with. So you might say, “Well, why bother?”

Why bother? Not only because it will make a massive difference to the people around you, but it will make a massive difference to you and your experience of life. You may have a goal of making the switch from the job that you’re in now to renovating and property. However, in the meantime you need that job because that’s really your ticket  to your next stage. So why not do it extraordinarily well, rather than just sticking in your comfort zone because that transformation that will happen in you when you take that on, will transfer over into your property journey. So  just look at it as preparation for the next phase.

Same thing with your relationships. I’ve been married for 36 years to the love of my life. I can honestly say there have been many times, most of the time I take that for granted. We do on occasions create a project around our relationship and reigniting the magic, but it takes effort.  You might think when you’ve been married for 36 years, “Why bother?” And same thing, why bother? Because it will basically transform your experience in life and what you do in one area of your life transfers across all of the areas of your life. Which brings me to another quote by a man named Oliver Wendell Holmes. What he said was, “Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it’s because they are always getting ready to live and before they know it, time runs out.” Unfortunately that is true. We’ve got this big plan in our head, we’re playing it over and over in our head, however, we never actually get it out of our head and into action. And so we don’t want to die with the music still in us. We need to get that out and start living the life of our dreams.

But it’s hard because your comfort zone is paralysing and it lulls you into a false sense of security. Now, if there’s anything that we have learned from the last 12 months with COVID-19, is that nothing is certain.

So you know, that job that you’ve had for however many decades that marriage or that relationship that you’ve had forever, that seemed like it was never going to go away, can be gone in an instant.  So  your comfort zone is really built on an illusion.

In order to rise above that, you need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. The problem is it stepping out of your comfort zone can be really challenging mainly because our subconscious mind does not want us stepping into uncertain territory. It wants us to stay comfortable because it’s safe. Okay? So you will find that if you decide to transform significantly that you will be met with opposition coming from within you.

Rather than go into that too much, what I want to do is share some steps for getting outside comfort and creating the magic. Okay. So let’s get into it.

Get Out From Your Comfort Zone

Step one is create a compelling case for getting out of your comfort zone. This is referred to as your ” why,” and this is a critical step because If you don’t create a compelling “why” it will be very hard to make progress. So there’s gotta be a reason for it. Unfortunately as human beings, we need to have a reason to make significant change. Something that I have found about myself is that reason can’t be about me, itt needs to be about someone else.

Getting to the source of your motivation is a bigger conversation that we’re going to have today. Just suffice to say is, you’ve got to establish your “why”. What is it that you are working towards?

The word compelling is significant for that reason or that “why” needs to be big enough, that it gets you over the humps in the road, the things that would normally stop you, the things that you find hard to do. Let’s say,  part of your strategy is you need to build relationships with real estate agents  so that you’re able to get insight information. That for some people is really scary. So you need to have a really compelling “why” to actually move you forward.

Write Your Goals

Step two is to create your goals in a written plan. Now, once again, this is a big conversation, but I believe that when setting goals, I don’t think it’s a good idea to plan down to the nth degree. I’m a great believer in the big picture, so  the big goal one of my mentors calls it the Big Kahuna but then the detail along the way needs to be flexible because things change all the time and you need to be able to flex with them.

So creating your big goal, and then a plan around it. That plan needs to be able to be tweaked and adjusted all the way along. And it’s important that it’s written. Okay? If the plan is not written, it’s not a plan. Once you get it down on paper, something happens. And that all works towards the transformation you need to make in order to get results.

Consistent Action

Step three is take consistent action on that plan. This is probably the biggest  missing piece in the puzzle and it is essential. The action is where the rubber hits the road and when you do start actually getting results.

It’s pretty simple.  Step one, two, three, but here’s the problem, as I mentioned that you yourself is probably your biggest enemy. That is because your subconscious mind is trained to keep you small, to keep you in that state of paralysis. In actual fact, I think it was Napoleon Hill that referred to it as hypnotic rhythm, which I think is code for comfort zone.

You will find that when you start moving down that path, that you will be met with resistance things like you start telling yourself,” I’ve left my run too late. I’m too old. Don’t have enough time, money, whatever. What if it goes wrong?” All these niggling doubts start wiggling their way in and undermine your confidence and stop you from moving forward.

So you need to get some measures in place in order to counteract that. Firstly, you need to anticipate it. It’s going to happen, okay? So you’ll get excited about your goals and then once the rubber hits the road and it starts getting hard, you will start sabotaging yourself. So let’s think about a few things you can do to overcome that.

Small Steps

The first one is to take small steps to stretch your comfort zone. Look on it like an egg with the yolk in the middle and  the white around it. The yolk is your comfort zone. The white is your sphere of possibility, so what you could be doing. The white is a big area, there’s a lot that’s available to you. If only you could break the confines of that yolk. But if you were to push out a bit from the side of the yoke and move it out in just a few millimeters that the limitations of that yolk or that the edge would break, then your comfort zone would have extended a little bit further outside where you would normally stop. It will never go back. Once you’ve broken through that barrier, it will never go back. So the idea is to just keep challenging yourself and taking little steps that push you just slightly outside your comfort zone. Not hugely cold turkey and you will find that that barrier will keep moving and moving slowly out.

Support System

The second way is to build a support structure and a system for the results that you want to achieve. Now that’s something that we do really well. So we have a training and community of women who are creating income and a life they love through renovating. We have the process and we have the support structure in terms of the mentoring so that you’re not going it alone, which helps to calm that primitive mind that’s trying to stop you from getting to where you want to go.

Cheer Squad

The third step  or way to deal with it is to build a cheer squad. Now here’s the problem,  I’m pretty sure that if you go and declare your goals to your family, you may have a supportive partner and family, but many don’t, they will pretty well help you kill them off. So you need to build a cheer squad of people around you who are big thinkers and who support your quest to get out of your comfort zone.

Gamify Your Progress

Now the fourth way and this is something that I particularly like to do is gamify your progress. So make it a game. Here’s the thing, it’s a bit like peeling an onion, so you will get through one bit barrier and it’s a  continual work in progress. It’s just that the bar gets lifted every time, which you can think, “Oh, that’s so depressing” you’re sort of  never there. Well, no, the transformation is in the journey. And that’s the thing you can choose to accept the challenge you break through that barrier, and then there’s something bigger to get. So you can choose whether you want to do that or not but I can tell you the magic is in the action.

Lastly, I want to share with you what I am doing in the next few months in order to get myself out of my comfort zone. I’ve set some fairly big challenges for myself this year. I decided that I need to really build my mental resilience in order to be able to achieve those goals.

I have noticed a few people in my business circles doing this particular challenge and it absolutely scares me to death. But I have decided to do it. It’s called 75 hard.

Basically, it poses itself as a fitness challenge, but the intention of the challenge is to build mental toughness. It includes five elements. There is a diet component of it, no specific diet but you need to choose something that after 75 days ends up healthier than when you started. And there’s absolutely no alcohol, no junk food, no chocolate and no cheat meals. The second aspect is activities. So there’s two workouts a day and one must be done outside. Whether it rains, hail, or shine. The third is you need to take a progress photo every day, which is not very challenging, but there you go. The fourth is you must drink a gallon of water, I don’t really know what that is in liters. And the fifth is that you need to read 10 pages from a nonfiction book per day.

While it doesn’t sound hard, the idea of no compromise is what makes it challenging. So if you don’t fulfill the goals or the objectives 100% every day, you need to go back to day one and start again. So that means if you decide to skip one of the workouts, on day 32, somehow you just don’t get time to do one of the workouts, then you have to go back to day one.

And  in there lies the challenge and the reason I’ve chosen this is because this is something that I do struggle with. It’s around creating new habits, being unreasonable with yourself and moving through pain.

You’re not supposed to tweak it, but I am going to tweak it cause there are some things, things like reading 10 pages, a book in a day, I would do that anyhow. So I don’t see that as a challenge. I’m going to add something else into that.

I don’t know whether I’m being pathetic, but it does scare me to death. However I have decided to do it. When I announced it to my family, some of my children did their best to talk me out of it. But that is going to be my thing for getting me in the right state for achieving my goals this year.

I should just give you a little rundown on what I’ve been up to. In the last week, Steven and I are both on holidays. We’re really sad that the borders are closed because it means our darling Hannah and Ed can’t come and stay with us. But  as soon as the borders are open, we will sort that out. It also means I can’t visit my mum in aged care, which absolutely sucks. But that’s life and so what we’ve done in the last week is we did our project review meeting with our joint venture team in the Chalmers Street project. So we’re getting ready for settlement and just getting the books up to date.

I’m really happy to report that we’ve done a hundred thousand dollar profit comfortably. So we’ve agreed on what our next project should be. We’re getting prepared for what that will be.

Karen has taken over the leadership of the group because I have had my turn. I’m very happy to be handing that over. And yeah, so it’s very exciting. In actual fact, I have asked that joint venture team to come in. We will do  an episode on that shortly. Other than that, I’m like half time at work until the, I think it’s the 11th. We kick into action and prepare for  2021.

I am committed to making it an amazing year for everyone in my community, because I think there are incredible opportunities around. And if there was ever a time to get out of your comfort zone, it would be now.

On that note, see you next week.