KGCI: Real Estate on Air - 10 Signs You're Blocking Your Own Progress

Episode Date: June 19, 2025

Hey there, welcome back to The Simple Truth with Stewart. Ever feel like you're spinning your wheels and getting nowhere fast? We've all been stuck in the mud at some point. But what if you're unknowingly creating the roadblocks that are holding you back? This episode is your personal tow truck. Here to help you identify 10 signs you might be blocking your own progress. By recognizing these self-imposed obstacles, you can take back control and start moving forward. Let's get unstuck.

It was some time ago where I've been doing sessions with a lot of my clients. And through these particular sessions, I take session notes like you cannot believe. Every single session that I go into, even if it's just a discovery call, helping somebody to uncover and just have a very light conversation. I started to take down all of these notes and started to compile a, a little bit of. a list of 10 key signs that people are blocking themselves. Now, what I mean by that is we are human beings. We're not robots. So we can't be programmed to always be self-motivated

and have that inspiration that drives us throughout our life. There are things in our life that actually almost becomes these hurdles. And it's these hurdles that actually can prevent us from moving forward. Now, today really what I want to talk about are these 10 signs. These are the 10 things that you could be sabotaging your life and potentially your growth in moving forward. And the reason why I want to share these 10 with you is when you become aware of the 10 different signs, you suddenly go, hey, wait a minute, I'm actually doing this. And it's that awareness that can trigger you to go, hey, you know what? enough's enough, I need to overcome this.

So that's what I'm going to be talking about today. And it's really, it's 10 signs that's blocking your progress. And can you overcome it? Absolutely. You can definitely overcome it. Now, the very first one, and I laugh about it because this is something that happens to everybody. It falls into a very, very simple word, procrastination. It's really, it's the marshal.

of delaying your future. Procrastination is something that I would say probably 90% of my clients and the people that I speak with, they have. At procrastination, why do we procrastinate? Well, we always find an alternative. We find something that will give us instant gratification, something that actually gives us a path where it's like, hey, I'll actually find that path to be a little bit easier and that's what I want to do. So when we look at this task, that lies ahead of it, we kind of go, oh, and then we actually, we start fighting ourselves. We find reasons not to do it. We find excuses not to do it. And procrastination starts to grow inside of us. And then it just becomes normal. Well, I don't do it because I don't want to do it. I'll do something

else. So how do we overcome procrastination? And if you're a person, and I'm almost certain that everyone does have this level of procrastination in their life. What you need to start doing is when you get to a point where you've actually, you know that you have to do it, don't sit and ask yourself the question. Well, should I do it? How could I do it better? Don't ask any questions.

I need to do something. Let me just go out and do it. Just have what we typically refer to as the two second approach. One, two, do it. One, two, do it. Straightforward like that. And it is a challenge in the beginning, but when you start to really embrace this one-two strategy and really get a part of your day-to-day, you will start seeing that procrastination starts to lower down.

So if you feel like you procrastinate a lot, go with the want-to-do-it approach. So just have a look at, oh, I need to do this. Want-to-do it. And you'll find that you're going to slowly start to. overcome this level of procrastination. It's not something that's overnight. It's something that you will do over time. So the master of delay procrastination. The second one, the second one, and this is something that we tend to do because we feel a little bit embarrassed, and it's the lack of accountability. When we actually go out to do a particular task and we set it down,

whether it's in our diary, our calendars, or on our to-do list, we actually look at it, and we actually don't have anybody to hold us accountable to confirm if we've done it. So we've got nobody to answer to. And really, accountability is it's such a powerful tool to have in your love. But why do we lack the accountability? Well, for many of us, we actually feel embarrassed. We feel embarrassed to get somebody else to hold us accountable. And really, it's something that you need to start.

to overcome. Accountability is such a powerful tool in your life. And you don't have to do it in a manner that is a command and control. Hey, did you do it? You need to do a type of accountability partner. It can be something in a social type of environment. You could actually do it with friends and family, maybe even part of a social or networking group. And ultimately, what you can do in those particular groups, all those particular environments, is you share what you're wanting to do in the next week or month and have it in an open conversation. And when you just have that conversation with somebody, ultimately, you're starting to ignite a level of accountability inside of yourself because you've told somebody you're going to start creating a fear. Hey, what happens if they actually

asked me? Did I do it? Well, start having those little groups, those conversations. conversations and sharing it, but make sure it is with a group of individuals that you're going to meet on a regular basis. So partners, friends, social environments, business groups, masterminds, etc. You schedule once a week just to have social conversations and you make it part of your conversation to share what you're going to do in the last, in the upcoming week. And in the same breath, they are going to say, so how did everything go in the week? And that's that level of accountability that can actually come up. So the second one that really stops people from moving forward in life is the lack of accountability. And it's actually quite an easy one for you to overcome.

So just find those groups. Find somebody that you can meet with on a weekly basis. And truly, you will see how your progress will start to move forward in life. Now, the third one is really one that it can actually become quite a challenge. And it's the fear of change. As human beings, we don't like things to change. We like the same routines over and over again. Change gives us this level of fear because it's the fear of the unknown.

We don't know what's going to happen. That's why when people are changing jobs or going into new relationships, they tend to almost close in in the beginning. Because it's the change. Routines are going to change. So that fear of change is within all of us because it's the unknown. And that is really the root of it. It's that unknown.

But what I really want you to do is when you get into a situation where change is inevitable, you have to go ahead and do that change. Look at that change as an opportunity for growth. You reframe it in your mind. Hey, I actually need to go to, let's say, a new shop that I've never been to. I don't know where the aisles are. I don't know where anything is in the actual shop. And that can be a level of fear.

Use it as an opportunity of growth, exploration. And what you'll actually get out of it is you'll start to get excited. Now, here's a great thing. When you learn to face your fears and accept change, life becomes exciting because you're always looking for something new and what you can do every single day. So look at that as a huge, huge positive. So the third one is the fear of change. And really, it's just to overcome that growth factor that you are fearing to actually move forward. So make sure that you face it head on and see it as an opportunity.

You just reframe that. The fourth one is one that really we do a lot of it. And it's called negative self-talk. We have a lot of time in our day where we are by ourselves. And it might be that you're in an environment with people around you, but you're by yourself and in your mind, you're busy going through any kind of thoughts in your mind. And ultimately, we start to create this negative self-talk. Now, negative self-talk is, hey, I'm actually going to phone this client. But this particular client, they could give me this, hey, how did you get my number?

or hey, I don't want to speak to you today or you start to create negative outcomes that haven't even happened as yet. And ultimately what you're starting to do is you're actually becoming a person to start self-sabotaging yourself. So negative self-talk is something. We all do it.

But what we need to do is when we have these negative self-talks, what we actually need to do is we need to start to reframe and we need to convert them into positive. And this is something that I actually started to implement many, many years ago. And it actually works quite well. And it's called positive affirmations. And really the positive affirmations is, I can do this. I will do this.

I can be successful. I will be successful. Having something as simple as that, in those moments where you're actually starting to have those thoughts, all you do is have a positive self-affirmation on hand. You can have it written down so that you can read it. And really the power of it is you need to get to a point of being able to memorize it and just repeat it five, six times.

And what that starts to do is it really starts to create this positive way of outlook and the way you actually think. We all do this negative self-talk. and it is something that you can, you can eliminate by just having these positive affirmations. So if you're a person that does it, just go out and write something positive. I can do this. I will do this. I can be successful.

I will be successful. And that's one, as you can hear, is one that I've used many, many times. And when I get to a point where I've got to phone a client, meet something or do something, I can do something. I can do this. I will do this. I can be successful. I will be successful. And then I go ahead and I just do it. And it's amazing. Just that positive affirmation. It starts to eradicate any negative self-talk in going forward. So if you suffer from this negative self-talk, find yourself a positive affirmation. Write it down and have it all over the place. Memorize it. In fact, tattoo it on your left arm so that you never forget it. Just make sure that you can overcome that negative self-talk. because it will sabotage your life in going forward. The fifth one, and this is something that, unfortunately, in life, we were never told or taught how important it is to have goals. In fact, through our youth, when we're starting to grow up, we had these goals, we had these dreams.

And through peer pressure, friends, family, business colleagues, etc., they would almost say to you, hey, you can't do that. Don't be ridiculous. That sounds crazy. So the fifth one is the lack of goal setting. You see, because over our youth and the teens, we had these greatest inspirations of wanting to do things, but the people around us weren't really supportive of it.

So ultimately what we did is we actually fell out of setting goals. And we just started to get into the mundane path of just waking up in the morning and doing the activity that lands in front of us. And there's really no purpose drive or any focus or direction in that. So the fifth one is the lack of goal setting. There's no target. There's no direction. And this is something that as a coach, I make sure that we have clarity around it,

as well as self-belief on achieving those particular goals. Because when you can actually believe that this is the goal that I want, You have the clarity of it. You're going to find things are going to become easier and easier and easier. So a last little tip on the lack of goal setting is visualization. Now, visualization on your goals is not as much as what you can physically see with your eyes, but it's what you can see when your eyes are closed. So what you can actually do is when you're actually going ahead and you want to set up those particular goals,

write it down on a piece of paper, share it with someone, get excited about it, ask yourself, why is this goal so important to you? Then what you do is you actually close your eyes and see if you can visualize it with your eyes closed. And when you can start to visualize it with your eyes closed, what you're actually doing is you're actually starting to reprogram that subconscious mind to start believing in it. You can see it internally. You'll start feeling it internally. And you're going to start seeing that when you open your eyes, you're going to start to see the path that lies ahead of you. So the fifth one is the lack of goal setting.

So many of us we actually do it. And the reason for it, it's not something that was on your shoulders. It was something from your youth that unfortunately put it into you to say setting goals, forget about it. It's not going to happen to you. So why do it? Well, I want you to change that. And I want you to start looking at setting those goals. Have that target, have that direction every single day when you wake up.

Make sure you can visualize it with your eyes closed. The sixth, and this is something that. Again, it falls on the back of when we were at school. You see, we were at school, we all had timetables. You had to be an English class at 8 o'clock and that was going for 35, 45 minutes, and then the bell would ring and then you'd go into the next class and then you'd go into the next class. And there was a very structured day for you. And ultimately, the reason for that structured day was to help you to achieve the outcome,

which was passing school. But ultimately what happens is we leave school. We didn't like that control environment, somebody telling us that we need to do this at a certain time to achieve a certain outcome. We didn't like that. And we get into that rebellious stage. We come out. We then go into college universities and we've got the freedom. And what's the first thing we do is we throw out the timetables.

And then we get into the habits, and this is the sixth one, of poor. time management. We don't know start times and end times in particular activities. So ultimately, what happens is we actually start to wake up later. We start to get a point or get two appointments later. We start to, hey, I don't have to do it today. I'll start doing that tomorrow. And ultimately, time management starts to fall away. In fact, we lose respect for time. So we, we lose respect for time. when we get into that little hole of poor time management, ultimately what starts to happen is we actually fail to do the activities that's going to move us closer to our goals. So what we really need to do is we need to bring back some form of control in our calendars,

in our time, give some form of management. Now, you can do that with things like time blocking, whereby you'll actually say, hey, from 8 to 9, this is the task that I'm going to do, and schedule it up front. Remember, it's an appointment with yourself to do that activity to help yourself get closer to the goal. So, poor time management is something that we all do fall into every night again, but when you can actually hold on to it and be in control of it, you will find that you're actually going to help you to move yourself forward. Now, on the back of that is I've had a lot of people say, hey, Stuart, this is great.

I'm setting up my time, eight to nine, I'm going to do this. Nine to ten, I'm going to do this. but now I've got 10 items to do in a day. Which one do I do first? Which one do I do last? Then we start to procrastinate. So you can see how everything starts to circle itself back around. And what you can actually do is when you've got this to do list of lots of items.

And that really starts to overwhelm you to put that into your calendars so that you can get a better time management. Is you can use a method that's called the Eisenhower method. And this is really where you look at the items and ask, yourself, is it important and is it urgent? And if you give yourself answers, yes, yes, this is important, yes, this is an urgent, well, that's going to move up the line. If it's something that's, well, it's not that important and it's not that urgent, it's going to move down the line. And you can actually work that all the way through all those items. And the items that give you the two yeses, they're urgent and important. Start with them first. And slowly work your way down until you

actually get down to the end. So, sixth one is poor time management. Make sure that you can actually be in control of your calendars. Make sure that you can actually be in control of your day, really. The seventh one, and this is something that as we grow in our age and life, we get to this point where we feel, hey, you know what? I know everything. And ultimately what we get, and this is the seventh one, we start creating a resistance to learning.

and ultimately it's what we recall as a closed mindset. We actually are limiting our growth and ultimately it starts putting us back. So to put this into a real life example and we can actually see how things have changed over the last, call it 15 years, it used to be something where technology was almost feared by everybody. there was a very small minority that grasped it. They said we're going to embrace this technology because this is going to be the way of life. But because it's so new, they went out and they learned. They mastered how to use it.

Those individuals today, really people look up to them. They've actually included that technology into their life. The people that said, I'm not going to learn that, I'm going to resist that. Ultimately, what happens is because life over the last 10 to 15 years has moved into a technology, space, and I'm sure you're going to see these people around you, they're going to go, oh, I don't know how to do that. I can't. That's technology.

I can't do that on my phone or on the laptop or computer. That's something that I fear. You see, we have to convert ourselves into a growth mindset, something where you're going to learn something every single day. I started embracing. In fact, I fell into that trap of saying, hey, I'm arrogant. I know as much as I need to know. I can go through life in the way that I'm happy. And ultimately, what I found was it made me go stagnant.

I then changed that by learning something new every single day. Simple. How do you do that? Well, you can listen to podcasts. You can read e-books, books. You can even watch certain YouTube videos that's just giving you the information. Don't fall into the trap of watching the cats on a surfboard. find something new every single day. And it can be something small. In fact, it doesn't even have to be related to your business. It could be something of a personal interest to you. Hey, I want to bake a cake.

How do I go ahead and break an egg without the shells landing in the flower? How do I do that? Well, these are the little things that you go through. Change your mindset and become a growth mindset person. remove that resistance to learning because it's that resistance to learning that's going to actually start to push you back which is really really sad the eighth one and this one here well it's called unhealthy habits you see having unhealthy habits habits actually fuels your stagnation it actually fuels you to not go forward why because you got into this habit which

is an unhealthy habit that is maybe sleeping into 11 o'clock, eating unhealthy foods that really is just not giving you any kind of substance and potentially going to bed at maybe 3, 4 o'clock in the morning. You see, all of these things becomes unhealthy habits. And it's these unhealthy habits that's actually have a negative effect on your physical body. And it's when your physical body is at a very low stage that it doesn't have that energy to actually move forward. So you need to start looking at the habits that you have. Have a look at your daily routines. What do you do? What do you do in the morning? What type of food do you eat? Do you exercise? Have a look at your schedule throughout the day. Going right into the evening.

When you become aware of the habits that you do every single day, you can start to identify. Hey, this habit is a negative habit. This habit is actually preventing me from having the energy to actually do the activities that I want to do to move me closer to my goals. So start looking at your habits. And we always look at the three categories, sleep, nutrition, and exercise. We look at those three because those three really gives us this power to give us more energy. And it's that energy that we want to actually be able to go forward. So have a look at your habits.

And it's these unhealthy habits that you may have that you'll need to overcome. The ninth is the lack of resilience. and the lack of resilience is when you just give up too easy. You've actually set yourself a goal. You've got the clarity on it. You know the actions that you need to actually do it. Day one, you've got the energy. Day two, you're kind of going, hmm, and day three, you're going, let's see if I can change my goal.

One of the biggest examples of this is from New Year's to about the 13th, 14th of January. So the first to the 14th of January is when everybody takes. out a gym contract. They've actually gone through a season where they feel, you know what, I want to make this year the best year ever, I want to go to gym. And what they do is they go to gym, they get all that energy. By day 13, 14, the gym contract is just another debit order. They don't actually put the actions in going into gym.

So that is the lack of resilience. And the lack of resilience is, don't. normally fueled by the lack of vision of your particular goal and that purpose and reason why that goal is so important to you. So when you start looking at something that you're on a path and you're moving forward and then suddenly you wake up one morning and you go, I'm going to procrastinate and I'm not going to do it. One, two, go. One, two, go. Just do it. Put on those little Nike shoes and just do it. You see, that lack of resilience happens every single time we get into something that becomes monotonous. It becomes repetitive and we want to make it more

exciting. Well, once those monotonies becomes a habit where you're doing every single day, guess what will happen thereafter? You're going to be just moving towards your goal at a pace that's at a subconscious level because you're not even know it and you're going to achieve those particular goals. So try and overcome that lack of commitments and really wanting to give you. up as quick as possible. And the last one, the 10th one, and this one is actually quite a serious notes because many times when I'm meeting with my clients, I always am looking at the root cause of what is preventing somebody from moving forward in their life. And I go through what I've just shared with you all those different nine points. But this particular one is one

that really does stand up. And in recent times, I've always been, I've been including it in my sessions. I ask my clients, tell me the people you circle with. What do they do? How's their life? Tell me about their habits, their aspirations. We start talking about all the relationships around. And what we've got to identify is for many people, the reason why they are battling to move afford in life is because of a toxic relationship. Now, I'm not talking about personal relationships, marriages and partnerships and that. It can go through to friends. It can go through to work colleagues. It can go through to networking groups that you're part of. It can be in social groups that you're part of. Have a look at these relationships because ultimately sometimes the peer

pressure of these relationships is so toxic. It drains all of your energy. And you don't have any positive energy left to move forward. In fact, for some of my clients, they're actually giving their positive energy to other people. And that becomes a toxic relationship. They're helping others to remain positive. They burn themselves out and they're unable to inspire themselves to actually get them back into PORUS. So look at the people around you and make sure that that they're able to inspire themselves. not toxic. They're not stealing the energy from you, which is preventing you from moving forward.

So have a look at those relationships and identify them and make the actions, make the calls. Because remember, it is your life. It's for you to go out and achieve your goals so that you can live that life by design. Now, through everything that I've discussed here, there are times where we say to ourselves, Stuart, I know that I have these. I don't know. know what to do. I'm just living with him day to day. And something that I share, that's the reason why I'm a coach, is as coaches, we ask you questions to help you see things that you never saw before, to help you to understand things that you never understood before, and to help you to hear things that you actually didn't want to hear about what you're doing in your activities.

So if you get into a point where you do feel like you're hitting the wall and you don't overcome it, look out and reach out for support and help from individuals. Because by doing that, that support can actually help you. And you don't have to go to the extent of going to a therapist or hiring a coach. It could even just be a conversation with a mentor, somebody that you respect and having those particular conversations. So as a final recap on everything, the 10 signs that you could be almost sabotaging yourself. The first one, procrastination. It's the master of delay. The second one is the lack of accountability.

Well, you've got no one to answer to. The third one is the fear of change. And this is that comfort over growth. The fourth one, negative self-talk, which is those inner circle critics and you sabotage yourself. The fifth one, it's the lack of goal setting. So you've got no target. You've got no direction that you're actually going through to. The six one, poor time management.

I'm trying to get all these numbers in my head here. So poor time management. And this is when time just slips away before you even think about it. Bam, the week's finished. Bam, the month's finished. Bam, the year's gone. The seventh one is that resistance to learning. Get that growth mindset that you can be in control of it.

The eighth one, it's unhealthy habits. Make sure that you identify them and replace them with healthy habits. The ninth one, it's the lack of resilience. So you give up way too easily. So make sure that you push through it. Because when you get to the other side, the grass becomes greener than you've watered every day. And the last one is those toxic relationships. Just be careful of the people around you.

Don't fall into the trap of saying everybody's toxic. because you could be the one that's toxic. So go through each one of those. These were my 10 signs that I've actually identified with clients that I've worked with over the years. And really, if you're unable or you don't know how to identify them or overcome them, remember to reach out to either a mentor or a coach or someone that you can have the conversation so that you can start moving forward and achieving those goals and really being controlled of your life. So you've learned the 10 signs you might be stuck in the mud.

Remember, awareness is the first step to progress. By identifying these roadblocks, you can clear the path and achieve your goals. Stay tuned for more inspiring content to help you move forward on The Simple Truth with Stuart.