People often ask me, “Why push for change when things are okay as they are?” In other words, life in their comfort zone suits them just fine. Why do we often prefer to stay in our comfort zone? Why is it good to step outside of it? How, as investors and leaders of the next generation, can we inspire our children, friends, and family to want to take responsibility for their financial situation?

Maximizing your financial situation is all about comfort zone issues. This is especially true when you are flat out in everyday roles: parent, employee, child, friend, etc. People must ask themselves, “Are my financial goals going to be realised if I continue to do what I am doing right now?” “Is my strategy and plan working?” “Have I identified my weaknesses and developed a plan to fix them?” “What am I prepared to sacrifice to achieve success?”

Similarly, whether to invest or not to invest is all about the comfort zone. If you are making this decision, the first decision required is to answer the question, “Are we determined to have the financial freedom to live the life you choose?” Suppose you are determined to have financial freedom. In that case, you need to identify what needs to happen, build the strategy and team around you, do the research and take action, go beyond your normal boundaries, educate yourselves until there is minimum room for error, design your plan, and live in the freedom of a new zone, that you created together with your mentors. THEN MOST IMPORTANTLY, YOU NEED TO TAKE ACTION!

Why doesn’t everyone do this? Words associated with staying in the comfort zone are often positive, for example, ‘easy,’ ‘safe,’ and ‘relaxed.’ On the other hand, words associated with leaving the comfort zone are often negative, for example, ‘unpleasant,’ ‘stressful,’ ‘hard work,’ and ‘risky.’ Given this association, it is easy to see why some people want to keep things as they are. BUT WILL LEAVING THINGS THE WAY THEY ARE ACHIEVE THE FINANCIAL GOALS AND LIFE YOU WANT?

Excellent and practical support and education can expand your knowledge and confidence beyond your comfort zone. In coaching, we call this area beyond your comfort zone where authentic learning and opportunities exist. As a Mum of five beautiful children, when I know they are hurting and mentally challenged by a situation, I give them a hug and some love. Still, secretly, I am rejoicing in their lessons as I know that these situations will only add to their confidence and well-being as well-adjusted young adults. As a coach with my clients, I rejoice in the faith they are learning to create their financial success.

If we imagine that a circle represents our comfort zone, then when we step outside our comfort zone a few times, the size of the circle expands. We get used to doing things we could not previously do and develop capabilities that were once outside our comfort zone. The challenge of a significant property investment education is to encourage and inspire individuals to keep taking steps outside their comfort zone and repeating the process until the comfort zone becomes quite large. In contrast, if we stay inside our comfort zone and play safe, others will grow around us, and our relative size is shrinking. To make matters worse, if circumstances change and we need to leave our comfort zone when we aren’t used to it, we can find ourselves unprepared, afraid, and lacking in resilience.

Hope plays such an important and motivating role in our lives. That is why we always focus on our end goal in property investing. Coaching is about clarifying goals and holding fast that the steps we have taken will achieve our desired goals.

Property investing can be like climbing a mountain we may not have climbed before. It can be exhilarating and, at the same time, frustrating. We often need hope along the way. If financial freedom were easy to achieve, all of us would have it all the time.

Hope is different from confidence. Confidence is based more on knowledge, while hope is on belief. Knowledge can be delivered through surrounding yourselves with other successful property investors, attending regular strategy and education sessions with your coach and mentor, tuning into podcasts, and taking action. We sometimes hear people say: “I cannot see the goal right now, so all I have is hope.” And so hope is a direct reflection of the strength of our faith:

• Faith in ourselves
• Trust in those around us
• Faith in our values
• Faith in our beliefs

And the opposite of hope, of course, is despair. Typically our goals are what inspire us, but not when we think they are impossible. We will never know whether we could have succeeded if we lose all hope.

My vision is to free people financially to live the life they choose. To do this, you need to continue to update your education with people doing well with their property investing and not listening to the media and background noise that constantly cause fear and prevent people from moving forward with what is important to them.

If anyone is allowing fear to rule their thoughts and actions, for example, selling a property before it has had time to do its job or not moving forward with growing your portfolio when you have the opportunity to do so, now is the time to get some coaching and education, around whether your fear is based on facts or the unknown!