Reflections
A team of experts
A lot of professionals contribute to the sale of a home. The real estate agent is that hard-working primary point of contact. Her team includes a staging expert, marketing professionals, web designers and social media pros. The handyman helps with last-minute punch list work and touch-ups. There’s also the inspector, appraiser, the escrow officer and the real estate attorney.
The burden on the seller
No one on the real estate team works harder than the seller: In our case, that’s Mike and me. There’s the emotional experience of letting go of twenty years of memories. The financial ju-jitsu of funding sale prep and moving expenses while preparing to make a major financial transaction. Packing boxes and staging the five acres of land and a larger home is a never-ending endurance race. And we haven’t even begun with the hassle of last-minute showings. I mean, it’s difficult to keep a house in a museum state while you still live in it.
My Solution
The half marathon is an incredible race distance. It’s long enough to challenge, but not so long as to wreck a standard weekend endurance athlete. The trick is this: You can’t stop running, because once you break your stride, it’s harder to regain. At this stage of the home sale and relocation race, Mike and I are exhausted. I mean, deep in our bones spent. But we can’t stop. Not now. We’re trying really hard to be settled in Kentucky before the deep Colorado winter sets in. We can’t slow. We’re got to push through the fatigue.
Your Key Takeaway
There’s a time to be easy on yourself and a time to push yourself. It’s not always simple to determine when to grant yourself some grace and when to forge onward. I find that if quitting feels, well, like quitting, then it’s best to push on. Keep your eyes on your goal and charge toward it. Cast other obligations aside and learn how to say no gracefully. If it was easy, everyone would do it. Good things take time and demand hard work and focus. Remind yourself how badly you want this, whatever “this” is. It will be worth it in the end.