_{A year like 2020 can knock even the strongest and most successful person off their feet. Over and over again.}

_{How can we pick ourselves up and keep growing, improving, and building our dream life when the world throws so many snowballs in our faces?}

You don’t have to create new strategies, develop revised plans, or completely change your path to start fresh. To reframe your view and build a path toward your goals, whether that is creating passive income through real estate investing or hitting the gym every morning, we can start with changing the way our mind welcomes success.

Laying out a new welcome mat at the door to your mind can start attracting bigger success. And that welcome mat is gratitude.

Start with Gratitude to Change Your Brain (and welcome success into your life)

Yes, even for 2020.

Shake off the year’s difficulties with a gratitude practice to bring together all of the good from the year. Think about those little silver linings around moments from the year. Think about what you learned, how you grew, and the new connections you made.

Our minds are wired to see the challenges, problems and difficulties first. Your ancestors’ survival depended upon seeing the hazards and responding before getting eaten or freezing to death.

I’m sure you’re grateful your ancestors didn’t get eaten, but it is time to rewire your brain to see the good, the blessings, the beauty that this life presents me. Gratitude triggers a complex response in the brain that triggers areas of the brain responsible for social interactions, empathy, moral judgment, and interpersonal bonding.¹

The positive rewiring that occurs through gratitude forges connections for ideas, creativity, and relationships outside of ourselves. The pathways created could allow our brain to fire off new ideas, build important networks, or recieve divine creative inspiration.

That sounds like the kind of welcome mat success appreciates.

And the end of a crazy year like 2020 is a great time to begin that practice.

Your 20 Gratitudes from 2020

Before you begin setting big goals for your financial freedom, physical health, or relationships (as those are the 3 life elements that fill our new years’ resolutions), compose a simple list.

Write down 20 things you are grateful for from 2020. Don’t stop with 10 or 15. Go all the way to 20.

Here is what I came up with:

1. No runny noses. Seriously, this is a miracle with a toddler in the house. Masks and hand-washing not only kept us healthy and COVID-free, but the common cold couldn’t even catch us this year.
2. A husband who dreams big with me and devours the same business and high-performance mindset and strategy books as me. You should see our bookshelf. Paddling guide books, adventure memoirs, and entrepreneurial growth.
3. Our local bakery and the small businesses who are working hard to make it through the challenging-retail times. Thank you for the cardamom buns White Salmon Bakery! Thank you for the veggie burgers Kickstand Kitchen!
4. Friends who want to run 33 miles around volcanoes with me (and start adding new routes to our goals for next season).
5. Moving into our favorite town and buying a house that will make money when we travel.
6. Slowing down. Planning less. Micro-adventuring with Juniper, our 3-yr old daughter.
7. My business partners and making Flow State Investing official. Serious gratitude for finding visionary partners, building this company together, and taking big action toward making a positive impact.
8. The Real Estate Goddess sisterhood – a network of female real estate investors who know that support and collaboration help us all go farther and have more fun.
9. Our rafting equipment and knowledge. Hitting the rivers this year felt like the perfect way to reset and connect with family. Our fully equipped raft set-up came in real handy this year, as well as our decades of river running knowledge.
10. Access to the outdoors right out our backdoor. The trailheads, the river access points, and the beaches that fill our town meant that we could get outside easily and safely. Gratitude for the years spent figuring out how we were going to make this place our home. It worked.
11. Business coaches, mentors, and advisors. How have I lived without them until now? Thank you Monick Halm for resetting my financial mindset and connecting me with real estate professionals who want to see me go big. Thank you, Julie Lam and Annie Dickerson for the personal connection and solid faith that I can help people invest in real estate and change their lives. Thank you Paige Panzarello for guiding us to our own growth and standing alongside us to grow Flow State Investing.
12. Shaking up of expectations, standards, status quo, and beliefs. Just when I thought I understood how to work, we all had to change our routines. Just when I thought that I did not contribute to systemic racism, I found deeper habits and patterns that I could change to help dispel hatred. I have gratitude for the things we took for granted and now have the opportunity to question.
13. Family on Zoom. Learning how much I value our time together above other types of travel. Gratitude for these connections that we miss so much, but still exist in new ways.
14. Our local Buy Nothing Facebook group that helped me to reduce my consumption and get rid of things that don’t bring me joy.
15. Frozen I and II. Yes, I’m grateful for the hours and hours singing in the car the ballads of the sisters of Arendelle.
16. Public displays of grace and compassion. Gratitude for the humans that stepped out of their comfort zone to stand up for kindness and love.
17. Essential workers who kept our communities running and the content creators who pivoted to provide new ways to serve (like Instagram classes with Nika Kermani and daily sessions with Pat Flynn).
18. Noise-canceling headphones.
19. Pizza Leona. Specifically, the wild mushroom pie.
20. You. I may notice have met you yet, but every person I have the fortune to meet who wants to learn more about how they can invest in Real estate is a fast friend. I’m grateful to have this platform to connect with you and help you transform your life.

_{Gratitude for the Future?}

Expecting Success In Achieving Your Goals

Now that you have primed your mind with all the good things that have come your way, you are ready to start taking gratitude into the future to generate the success you deserve.

Take your goals for the year and write a single gratitude statement for the achievement of those goals, as if it has already happened. By expecting success, it actually flows to us more often. We wire our brains chemistry to recognize opportunities that lead to the fulfillment of our goals.

Here is what that looks like for several of my goals:

Real Estate Investing Goal

For instance, I’m grateful for helping 50 families keep their homes instead of getting foreclosed upon by a big financial institution. I’m grateful that my knowledge of loan modifications for non-performing notes allows me to give this opportunity to people who need it the most.

I’m also grateful for the passive income streams that we are currently rolling into new investments to build wealth with velocity.

Trail Running Goal

I’m grateful for running the 42 miles around Mt. Hood on the Timberline Trail in one day. Wow, that felt good!

Relationship Goal

I’m grateful for the Wednesday Miracle Mornings carved out with, Adam, my incredible husband, that have allowed us to maintain a deep and loving connection, to grow our respective businesses, and to appreciate our family in a way that uplifts and fulfills us daily.

A Leg-Up On Achieving Success for Real Estate Investing – Right Now and Long-Term

As I read those statements aloud, I’m already enjoying the fulfillment of the goals. It makes doing the work to achieve the goals more fun like I’m borrowing some of the joy that comes with reaching our goals to use while I work to reach them.

Tricky, right?

With big real estate investing goals, I’ll take every leg-up I can. Especially if that effort makes each day more fulfilling, my work less stressful, and my relationships stronger. Real estate investing can feel like a long road. And while I’m focused on building long-term wealth and the freedom that comes along with that, I also refuse to neglect to be happy in the present moment. Daily gratitude helps me do just that.

This year, build this gratitude practice into your goal-setting practice to bring more fuel to the fire. Setting financial goals like having enough passive income to quit your job, or give freely to the organizations you love, can happen sooner than you think, especially if you add these types of mindset practices into your routine.

I’d love to hear about your gratitude and goals. Join our Flow State Investor Circle to schedule a call with me. We’ll discuss your investing goals and see if real estate investing could help you achieve them faster.

1. Cunha, L. F., Pellanda, L. C., & Reppold, C. T. (2019). Positive Psychology and Gratitude Interventions: A Randomized Clinical Trial. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 584. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00584 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6437090/