In property investing, sometimes – just sometimes – things don’t go your way.
Maybe the due diligence you did wasn’t quite up to scratch or perhaps your circumstances have changed. Maybe some external force has altered the plans you had.
If you are going to make a loss, here’s a few steps to make sure that you still continue with your investing journey.
Don’t repeat your mistakes
What happened exactly? Where did you go wrong? Could you have done something differently? If so, what? Analyse your mistakes, as well as the actions and decisions you could have made differently and write them down.
It’s important that you understand fully what did happen, and what you should have done differently, so you don’t make the same mistakes again.
Admit you were wrong, have a wallow, then move on
You made a mistake, so what? Everyone makes them – you are not the first one ever to make a loss on an investment.
Read about any successful entrepreneur and you will see somewhere in their past lies a mistake they made that cost them money. Sometimes something happened that was out of their control, like the crash in the 80s, which almost wiped out many of today’s big property developers.
Look at visionaries like Gerry Harvey or Steve Jobs who got kicked out of their own businesses. The main thing that these people did after losing was to keep going and to believe in their ability.
It’s okay to lick your wounds, but after that, you need to pick yourself up and move on.
Time to change
Understand that you made the best decision with the information you had available at that time, but now that the situation has changed, you too must change. Now you have discovered and admitted your mistake, it’s time to act in a different way. Remember, making a mistake doesn’t mean you’re stupid and it doesn’t mean that you can’t invest. You just might need to do something differently.
Maybe you decided to buy a property that didn’t fit with your direction and now you have to take a loss through selling in order to move on to better investments. Whatever the case, you must change something about the current situation in order to move on and to reach your goals, because no matter what, you can’t give up.
Channel your energy into something positive
Start putting the energy you were using for feeling miserable and beating yourself up into doing something that will have a positive result. Can you find a new, better investment that will help you achieve your goals? Or maybe take it as a sign that you need to make some changes in your personal life (such as allowing yourself more time to think through decisions).
This is the stage to get into gear and make mental changes so that you can feel confident in yourself.
Go again
This is the scary bit! If everyone stopped the minute they made a mistake we wouldn’t have iPhones, skyscrapers, or a high level of health and wellbeing in our communities. No-one would achieve anything. Admit that you were wrong, learn from it and aim to never do it again!
Don’t let the past stop you and don’t let a mistake, even one that causes a monetary loss, prevent you from being successful.
