Consistent Enough: Why Perfection is Enemy #1

Consistency is one of the most common pieces of advice in real estate—but for a lot of agents, it’s also the thing that keeps them stuck.

In this episode, I’m breaking down why perfectionism is actually the reason you can’t stay consistent, how all-or-nothing thinking is quietly killing your momentum, and what “consistent enough” really looks like in a real estate business.

If you’ve ever fallen off your marketing plan, ghosted your sphere, or felt like you had to start over every time life got busy, this will help you build a system you can actually stick to.

This is about sustainable consistency—one that works in real life, not just on your best weeks.

What You’ll Learn:

•  Why perfectionism makes consistency harder for real estate agents 
•  How all-or-nothing thinking leads to burnout and inconsistency 
•  What “consistent enough” actually means in practice 
•  How to stay top of mind without doing everything perfectly 
•  How to choose a marketing strategy you’ll actually follow through on 
•  What to do when you fall off your routine (and how to recover fast) 
•  How to build a simple, sustainable consistency system 

Mentioned in This Episode:

🎧 Episode 61: Why Being Consistent Is So Hard for Real Estate Agents
(listen wherever you get your podcasts) 

✨ Dear Sphere Workshop on May 14th (write your monthly newsletter + system)
https://happyagent.co/dearsphere

*****************************************************

Let's stay connected! 

💼 Coaching with Lindsay – happyagent.co/coaching

Get personalized strategy, support, and mindset shifts to scale your real estate business without sacrificing your joy.

🎓 Happy Agent Academy – happyagent.co/academy

Your go-to resource for freebies, on-demand courses, templates, and tools to help you grow a thriving real estate business. 

📩 Join the Happy Hustle Newsletter – happyagent.co/subscribe

Weekly insights, strategies, and real talk to help you build wealth, lead boldly, and create a business you love. 

📲 Connect with Happy Agent Co. on Instagram or Facebook – instagram.com/happyagentco

📲 Connect with Lindsay on Instagram or Facebook – instagram.com/lindsaydreyer

Transcript

Welcome And The Perfectionist Trap

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Hello, friends. It is Lindsay, your host, real estate coach, brokerage owner, mom of three wild ones. It is baseball season and I am coaching Little League. And I'm telling you, it is so fun and also a total vibe. But we're not talking about that today. This episode is my love letter to all of my perfectionists out there. I am one recovering always. I will always be in perfectionist recovery. And today we're going to talk about consistent enough and why perfection is our enemy number one sometimes. Consistency sounds so simple. It sounds so obvious, right? We hear it all the time. It is like ad nauseum advice. Be consistent, show up, do the thing, do the thing, girl, every day, every week, forever, for the rest of your life, without fail, and your business will grow. And then life happens, right? We have a sick kid. We have an aging parent who has a doctor's appointment. We miss a week of calls. We skip our newsletter. We go dark on Instagram for three weeks because a transaction blew up and you literally wanted to hide under a blanket. We have all been there. And then suddenly you're not just feeling like you're behind, but you feel like a total and utter failure. You feel like a loser. And it's that all or nothing thinking which perfectionists get into. So you either decide that you're gonna white knuckle your way back to perfect consistency, which really not everyone can maintain. I mean, honestly, for me, it lasts about a month, or you just quietly give up on that habit you were trying to build completely because you just don't have it in you. And neither of those are the answers. So today I want to talk about what I call being consistent enough and what it actually takes to build a business on real, sustainable keyword, sustainable consistency, not just the highlight real version. And this is not perfect. I know we all want to be, but this is consistent enough. So I want to name the real problem first, which is I actually don't think agents have a consistency problem. And we have a previous episode, episode number 61, why being consistent is so hard for real estate agents. So definitely recommend checking that out because this is like a great complement to that. Um, but I think that the perfectionist real estate agents out there, hey, hey, me, is that we have a standard problem. Like we have set the bar so high, we want to commit to daily social media posts, weekly calls, monthly events, monthly newsletters, constant follow-up. And that the moment we fall short of any of it, it all feels ruined. It feels like total failure. And that all or nothing thinking is so dangerous, and it is what derails our progress. And I know this is like real popular right now, but it's like that progress over perfection. And I also think part of it is comparison. Like we're watching the agent in your market who seems to post every single day, or it's that team that sends a mailer every single month, like clockwork, or the coach on Instagram who like never misses a beat. And you've decided that that's just like the baseline. That's what consistency looks like. But what you're not seeing behind the scenes is their team and their systems. You're not seeing their virtual assistant who schedules everything. You're not seeing the videographer that does a content day and essentially records a month's worth of content, edits it for them, and schedules it. You're not seeing the weeks that maybe they went dark and the algorithm just buried it. They weren't popping up in your feed. Um, I think that that comp that comparison of other people's success, other people's performance, other people's consistency is really challenging for someone who holds themselves to impossible standards. And I completely understand because I am this person. And when I don't live up to my impossible standards, I feel like total shit. I feel horrible about myself. And it's that all or nothing trap, especially when it comes to real estate marketing and follow-up, that is so important for us to be aware of and then notice and not let it derail our business because that perfectionism absolutely kills more businesses than I think laziness has ever had. I don't, I don't even think there are lazy real estate agents who are doing a good clip of business. Like you're not lazy, like you are just overwhelmed and really busy. So that comp the comparison spiral also is made worse, as we all know, by social media. It's like we're always like, oh, the grass is real green over there. My grass looks like total crap. Um and I've seen a lot of agents who start a new system every few months, totally committed to it, and then they abandon it two weeks later. They start another system totally with it for a few months and then abandon it. So there's like that cycle of like, I'm gonna do this perfectly, and then I don't do it perfectly, and then I fail, and I'm just gonna jump off the bandwagon. Um, and then there's other agents where they're consistent for years, but for some reason, maybe they got divorced, maybe they had a baby, maybe they have an aging parent they need to take care of, maybe there's a death in the family. Um, but they fall off. And now there's that guilt that prevents, or maybe even grief, completely, to be completely honest with you, of like starting again. So the enemy of consistency is sometimes that standard we're setting for ourselves that made us feel like that one missed day was a total failure. So I really want to talk about what is consistent enough actually mean in practice. Because I'm not here to give you permission to be a flake. Like that's not where we're going with this. But I am here to help you figure out what's gonna hold through your busy seasons, through the hard months, and the inevitable moments where life's like, I'm taking the wheel, baby. So here's how I think about consistent enough. Consistent enough is not about the frequency, it is about reliability. And your sphere does not need to hear from you every single day. They do not need a social media post from you every single morning or a text every week. I mean, real talk, wouldn't that be so exhausting and annoying? I'd be like, get off my jock. I'm realtor. I don't need you in my inbox all the time. But what they do need is to be able to predict you. And so they want to, they need to know like when you're gonna show up, that you show up the same way, that there's consistency in that, that you're not going to disappear for six months and then reappear with like a cheesy forced check-in that feels random or transactional. Reliable once a month beats sporadic every day of the week, every single time. So I want you to think about the people in your own life whose communication you actually trust, whose relationship you actually trust. And it's probably not the person who texts constantly and then goes silent. It's the person who shows up when they say they will, who you know is thinking about you even when you aren't in an active text conversation or they're not in your inbox. And that's what I'm hoping you can build with your sphere, your clients, is that it's not a content machine, but it's a reputation for reliability because reliability is consistency. And again, it's not frequency, it's about showing up reliably showing up reliably. So many agents I coach struggle with this, where it's like good enough consistency and it's not doing all the things, it's picking the most important things that you can execute reliably. And one of the things I execute reliably in my business, which I talked about in last week's episode, is my personal news email newsletter. It's a personal email I send to my sphere, same day every month. It's reliable, it's warm, it's consistent enough. And if you are interested in learning that letter that I send, I'm hosting a workshop called DeerSphere on May 14th, live on Zoom. Um, get more info at happyagent.co slash Deersphere, and you can check out the details if you want to steal and rip off my personal email. Go get it. Why reinvent the wheel? But I want you to remember that you don't need to be everywhere, you do need to be somewhere reliably over time. And part of that, which is really the next section we're diving into, which is picking the thing you'll actually do. I know that there are just some things I'm not gonna do. So I'm making sure that I'm choosing things that I actually want to complete. And I know that this feels super basic and really simple, but I really do mean it is that the best lead generation activity, the best follow-up system, the best marketing strategy is something that you will actually do. And it's not necessarily the one with the best return and investment in theory. Um, it's not the one that your top producer friend swears by, and it's not what the like influencer coaches say on Instagram. It is the one that you are going to do consistently enough for long enough to see results. And I talk to agents all the time who have built elaborate systems that they completely hate. They have built marketing machines that they absolutely despise. They have CRMs they never open. They have social media strategy that makes them completely burned out. See that a lot. Or they have a block on their calendar where they're gonna make calls to their past clients every single week and they literally never do it. And then they wonder why they don't can stay consistent. It's because they don't want to do these activities. There's a difference between making yourself do something that you want to do versus making yourself do something that you don't want to do. And you cannot sustain something that you absolutely resent. It's part of the reason why I have never ever had a strategy in my business in terms of lean generation or marketing that involves phone calls. I do not want to talk to people on the phone. Like that's just not my jam. If I did make a strategy based on making phone calls, eventually that resentment of making phone calls is going to win. So before you commit to any consistency system, I want you to ask yourself an honest question. Do I actually want to do this? Not is this a good idea, but do I actually want to do this? Because wanting to do something is what sustains that consistency. Having to do something is what usually kills it. So, how do you decide what you actually want to do? I like to think of like your natural consistency strengths. Like, what do you like doing? Are you a writer? Do you like making phone calls? Are you a connector? Are you a host? Do you like doing events? Like build your outreach strategy around what you're actually good at and what you enjoy, because that means you're probably going to stay consistent. I personally love writing. I love writing and I love email as a medium. I think it's super interesting. I like storytelling. So that's why email newsletters work so well for me, because it's something I enjoy doing and it's something that I can consistently do. The marketing, the lead generation, the system that you'll actually use is infinitely more valuable than the perfect system that you keep abandoning or that you keep not using. This episode would not be complete if we didn't talk about the gap, because every single agent has one, probably several. Let's be real. The gap, what is it? It is a stretch of time where you fill off the wagon, where your calls didn't happen, the emails didn't go out, the follow-up sat undone. It could be a week, it could be three months, and it might even be longer, maybe even longer than you want to admit. And the gap actually isn't the problem. Missing, making mistakes, not being consistent, that's human. That's life. It's real. Transactions blow up, kids get sick, markets shift, and legit, sometimes we just don't have energy at the end of the day. And that's life. The problem, the actual business problem, is what you actually do after the gap. So do you spiral? Do you start really blaming yourself? Do you go into shame? Do you decide the damage is too great to undo? Do you convince yourself that it's too late now? Your sphere has like forgotten, or it's embarrassing to be in touch now because it's been so long. So most agents do one of two things. They either just don't reach out at all, or they reach out with a weird apologetic vibe, and it makes it way more awkward than it needs to be. Like your sphere is not sitting around noticing your absence in the way that you think they are. They have their own lives, they have their own gaps, they have their own things. So you can reach back out. You don't have to apologize for the silence, and you can just show up like yourself and keep going. So you can find ways to re-engage your sphere after a gap without making it weird. You can even acknowledge the gap. Like that makes it human, right? Hey, it's been a really crazy season. I've had sick kids. I had to put my mom in a nursing home, whatever it is. And it doesn't have to be like big announcements or an apology tour, but the story that we tell ourselves about the gap is actually more damaging than the gap itself. So closing that gap is not as big of a deal as we make it out to be. And that's what we need to do. We just need to close the gap. It's okay to have a pause, but it is also okay to pick it back up and keep going. One of the things I do with coaching clients is build a good enough consistency system. And this is the one that survives real life, where no matter what, compel or high water, this is what we are doing. So I don't want you to leave this episode fired up and then have no idea what to actually do differently. And the consistency systems that I have seen hold up over time have a few things in common. The first is they're super simple. It's like one or two things, like minima, like maximum. It's really, really simple. The other thing is that they're attached to something that already exists in your life. So for me, habit stacking, like I'm gonna write that newsletter on top of my morning coffee, or I'm gonna write that newsletter along with my podcast. So you're attaching it to something that already exists in your life. And then you have that minimum viable version of your consistency system for when things get really hard. So you might have four things that you want to execute consistently in your consistency system, but when things get really hard, you're only gonna execute two of them. And that last piece is what makes the agents who are consistent different from all the others. So, for example, you might want to be doing weekly social media, email newsletter monthly, postcard monthly, and a quarterly event. Those are your four things you want to do consistently. Let's say shit gets hard, life gets difficult. What are the things that are the minimal viable version of that consistency system? It's gonna be my postcard and it's gonna be my email newsletter. Yes, I'd love to do events. Yes, I'd love to do social media, but those two things can drop off. The most important things to me are those two things. Now, yours might be different, and that's totally fine, but it's nice to have the a hundred percent perfect plan, which is great if we can execute it. And then there's also the oh shit, things got hard plan. And it's we aren't letting perfection be the enemy of good. We are at least showing up consistently enough. I find that most agents build their consistency system around their best weeks, like when everything's running smoothly, when energy's high, when they have time in their calendar. And it works awesome until it doesn't. And then that hard week comes and there's no plan for that week. So everything's falling apart. And that's really what this comes down to is you need a best week plan and your hard week plan, or your best month plan and your hard month plan. And that's your full system. And then you also have your floor, and your floor is that non-negotiable minimum. It's the thing you will do no matter what. So that is the key. It's like we have the ideal, we have the floor. So I want you to think about like, what is your personal floor? What is the, if I'm having the worst month ever, personally, professionally, what can I stick to that allows me to show up consistently enough and get out of my perfectionist mindset? Part of that perfectionist mindset is that we've been trained to measure consistency by streaks. If you look at like every habit tracker out there, right? It's like, how many days in a row have we done this? How many weeks in a row have we done this? How long has this run lasted? And then when that streak breaks, and I'll be real, it always breaks eventually at some point. It feels like the whole thing was a total and utter failure. But that's not how real relationships work, right? Like, look at your real relationships, and that's not how trust is built. Your business and relationships, those are built on trust. And your sphere isn't keeping a street counter. They are holding that feeling of a relationship with you. And it's the sense of you when you show up for them. And they're going to think about whether you're reliable, whether you can count on you. And that feeling is built over months and years of being consistent enough. It's not built over being perfect. It's not built by being relentless. It's literally built by being present over time in a way that feels like you. And that's the standard that I want you to hold yourself to, which I know is really hard as a perfectionist. It's not the streak, it's that feeling. And the people in your sphere, I want them walking away from every interaction, thinking, yeah, she's got it together. She's someone I can trust. She's going to be there when I need her. And if what you're doing, that answer to those things is yes, then you're consistent enough. And I want you to keep going. Consistency is not a streak, it's your reputation. And reputations are built by one reliable touch point at a time. So here's what I want you to do this week. There's two things. The first is pick one. Pick one consistency habit that you will commit to you for the next 90 days. Not five, just one. The thing you will actually do in the frequency that you can actually sustain. Write it down, put it somewhere you'll see it, put it in your calendar. And then second, I want you to think about your floor. Design your floor. What's the absolute minimum version of that habit for your hard weeks? Make it like so tiny that it's almost embarrassing. Like that's the point. That's small enough that you can do it on your worst day. Because doing it on your worst day is exactly what consistency is made of. That's it. One habit, one floor, 90 days. You might miss it. And that's already true, probably. Like the question is if you come back to it and how fast you come back to it. And that's that resiliency piece that's consistent enough that really separates the agents who do this well from the agents who just give it up. So yeah, pick it back up. No apologies, no announcement, just keep going. And if the one habit you're committing to right now is your Sphere newsletter, I want to help you write your first one. Dear Sphere is my live 90-minute workshop on May 14th, where we're going to build the whole system together. You'll leave with a recipe for your monthly newsletter, a finished letter, and how I use AI as a writing tool, not doing it for me, but as a tool that makes it faster every single month. It's$47 and replays included. You can find out more at happyagent.co slash deersphere. Consistent enough is not about settling, and I know it can feel like that sometimes, but it's about giving yourself an out. It's about giving future Lindsay or future you something that they can lean on. And it is about something that holds up through hard seasons, busy transactions, weeks where you're running on fumes. It's about choosing sustainability over perfection, which I know is really hard. And it's also about your business, which is built on long term relationships. And with long term relationships, sustainability always is a winner. If this episode landed for you, please share it with that perfectionist agent who maybe has been stuck in a guilt spiral and needs to get off their ass because I know they need to hear this too. If you haven't left a review, that would be amazing. Because it helps more agents find the show. And I genuinely appreciate every single one of you. I'll be back next week. Until then, stay happy.