Real Estate Training and the Holidays – 5 Tips to Stay Sane and On Track

It is hard enough to focus on your real estate training on a normal day, add in the 6 to 8 weeks when all anyone can talk about is the Holidays and it can make your life a nightmare of trying in vain to study with little to no success.  If you are wondering how you can handle your training, parties, shopping, general merry making and getting any sleep at all you’re not alone.  Here are a few tips that might just help you make it through to January 3rd with your sanity, and a continued interest in your Real Estate career.

1. If you are going to live training classes, you should be just about out for winter break, stop stressing!  You may have reading assignments or homework to do, but just set aside a couple hours each day, and you wont be up until 2 a.m. the night before class trying to stuff 50 gallons of Real Estate Law into a head that at that time of night feels open to only a pint.  Pace yourself!  It will get you through many obstacles over the holidays.
2. If you are training online, cut yourself a little slack.  You are entitled to a life too.  Check your schedule (if there is one) and make sure when your next lesson is due.  If you do have a schedule, make sure to make Holiday plans that don’t conflict.  If you have a test, the morning after your significant others work party—don’t get hammered and leave early enough that you can be rested before the test.  People will understand, and it isn’t an excuse… It is your future.
3. Plan your shopping trips.  Don’t run all over town, then fret about not getting anything else done.  Map out your shopping – you can even use a computer mapping program like google maps or map quest.  Keep your trip to one area of town, doing all the shopping that you need to do there.  It may take more than one trip out, but the hassle of driving, traffic will be reduced as well as your stress level. Planning Rules!
4. If you are the chief cook, maid, bottle washer, and all around gofer – See step 3.  Planning will be your saving grace.  But the other thing to think about is what is really necessary.  You are running a home, doing the shopping, taking care of the kids, parents, siblings etc.  So you need to pare down.  Even if you are SUPER HUMAN you don’t need to be showing off your powers during the Holidays – It is Santa’s big day after all.  So just because you always do all the cooking, doesn’t mean that this year you can’t ask Aunt Mabel to bring a vegetable dish, Mom to make the pies, and cut the number of side dishes down to 5 instead of the normal 20 that you make…. The Holidays are about family, they are about friends, they are a time for you to connect with the divine spirit.  They don’t have to be a time when you are trying to study while basting a turkey and mashing the potatoes, and trying to listen to Uncle Joe’s war stories simultaneously.  Give yourself permission to be human, and let someone else carry some of the weight.
5. Boundaries – Offer help or services with an open heart – if you resent doing them afterwards it isn’t doing anyone any good.  Your class schedule has to come before parties, shopping, etc. it is after all the career you chose, and you need to make the best of the education you are getting.