When things get tough, how do you stay the course?

[Nathan Harden]

Hey BP community,

I started my investment journey about 6 months ago when I was able to get my first SF property. Since then, I have been able to obtain 3 properties. I have found myself in a slump lately, I'm not sure if that happens to anyone else but in some ways, I feel the motivation draining. I live on the West Coast and started my investment career in Canton Ohio, so for months I was waking up and living my life on the same schedule as Eastern time zone. I was waking up at 4am here (7am there) and getting everything that I needed done for the day so that when the workday in Canton started, I was on the same schedule as everyone over there. 

Lately, I have hit so many brick walls, whether it comes to funding, finding deals, finding financing or whatever the case may be, I just have not been able to get anything going. I have really turned a lot of my attention to creative financing since I have spoke with well over 100 different lenders whether that may be local credit unions, DSCR lenders, hard money. If it's a bank, they won't loan to me because I have not been a consistent 1099 employee for 2 years. DSCR or Hard money won't loan on the properties that I have or are going after since the value of the properties are less than $100k. I went all in and refinanced my primary residence and used private money to buy the 3 properties that I currently have.

I do believe that if there is a will, there is a way. I think that I thought I was going to take the investment world by storm, and it turns out that doing this is not as easy as I had it in my head after podcasts and books. 

My question is, when you get stuck, how do you maintain that same fire and motivation to keep pushing forward when it seems that all these cards are stacked against you?