6 Common Excuses That Keep You From Investing (And How to Banish Them!)
Rebecca Mitchell | August 07, 2017
6 Common Excuses That Keep You From Investing (& How to Banish Them!)
“Why put off till tomorrow what you can do today.”
Constantly at family gatherings, or hanging out with friends for dinner I am always hearing the moaning and groaning of “what if”s” or “shoulda woulda’s”.
Why do people always seem to make excuses for not having stepped foot in the investment market?
Is it fear, is it lack of knowledge or is it just that people don’t know where to start.
One of the key factors that prevent people from taking action is making EXCUSES.
Here are the six most common excuses so that you can recognize and overcome them.
Excuse #1: I’m Too Young
Maybe you feel like you’re too young to invest because you’re still in university or have just finished university and have no professional experience whatsoever. You can’t believe anyone will take you seriously.
Who would sell me a $1.5M apartment building?
And so we decide to let years go by.
To overcome this excuse, try the following:
– Educate yourself and learn the language so to speak.
– Read, read and read some more
– Meet up with other investors
Just following these couple of steps will help make yourself look more credible than you may actually be or feel. Trust me it worked for me when I went to look at purchasing my first property.
Excuse #2: I’m Too Old
Or maybe you have the opposite problem: you’re too old to get started with investing. You feel like you’ve been beaten down too much in life. It’s too late to take any risks; you have too many responsibilities. And you don’t have the energy anymore. The opportunity has passed.
Think again!
Let’s look at all of the assets you have if you’re a bit on the mature side:
– You have decades of real-life experience.
– You probably have equity or some form of savings
– You have a network of friends, family and coworkers who might be interested in investing with you.
– And energy and the outlook is all a matter of attitude.
Take advantage of what you have. Don’t let “old age” stop you from living life to the fullest. Now is the time.
I have a client who bought their first investment property at the age of 55 and now he is just so keen to play catch up and is constantly saying to me “why didn’t I start this years ago”
Excuse #3: I Have No Money
I LOVE this one because it’s SO common.
My response? How do you know? Have you sat down and looked at how much you earn v how much you spend?
I am amazed at the number of people that once they sit down and work out their expenses there is all this money left over doing nothing that could go towards a savings plan.
So you can’t go out tomorrow and buy a block of units, but at least you have a plan on how you are going to get there sooner than you did before.
Excuse #4: I Have No Experience
This is somewhat related to Excuse #1, and it affects people of all ages. The cure is still to make yourself look more credible than you think you might be.
Every successful real estate investor at one point started without any experience. Why should you be any different? The funny thing with experience is that you only get it if you get started and do something. So get started — today.
Excuse #5: I’m Not Ready
I’ve met countless real estate investors who attend seminar after seminar, workshop after workshop but never actually implement anything they’ve learned. It’s not that the system they’re learning doesn’t work, it’s that they feel they’re not fully prepared to take action.
And that’s a big mistake.
The truth is that even the most successful people were never fully prepared when they first started doing whatever brought them to success today.
The solution: Take action.
To overcome this excuse, write down ONLY the next THREE things you know you should do next. Then do them, and when you’re done, repeat the process. If you do this over and over again, you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish.
Excuse #6: I Have No Time
Ah yes, we love this one, don’t we? We have a job. We have a family. We’re too busy. We’ll do it once the holidays are over. When the kids are out of the house. When we’re retired.
The truth is, it’s not about time. It’s about priorities. When you say you don’t have the time, what you’re saying is that “it’s not important.”
To make my point: If you got a call today that a loved one was critically ill and only had a few days to live, wouldn’t you drop EVERYTHING and go visit that person before it’s too late? Of course, you would. Because at that moment, spending time with your loved one is more important than anything else, including the 101 top-priority things on your to-do list.
When your excuse is that you have no time, seriously ask yourself how badly you want to accomplish the goals you say you want to achieve.
Something that someone told me once when I said I have no time:
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and where there is no will, there is no way.”
