It does not have anything to do with how many more books you read or how much better your productivity becomes. Instead, it’s the addition of what I consider to be the missing element in many people’s personal or business success planning. Too often, many folks try to educate themselves in the areas that they want to improve in. There’s nothing wrong with this, but where people often fall short is when they try to achieve their goals as solo efforts. For some reason, some think that the journey to success must be traveled on their own. The fact of the matter is that there is a much better approach to achieving success, which will guarantee a better year for you compared to all past years. In addition to education and acquiring knowledge, if you adopt the approach that you will no longer attempt to achieve all your goals in isolation, you will reach higher levels faster.
Actively Being with Like Minded People
The surefire way I’m referring to is to actively be with other like-minded people who are also interested and committed to achieving the same type of goals that you are. Some of these people may have more experience than you do in certain areas and therefore are in a position to help you. They can share with you their experiences that made them successful so far and even point out any mistakes they have made or failures they had along the way. These can help prevent you from making the same type of mistakes — some of which can be costly. By having people share their direct and relevant experiences with you, your learning curve can be shortened which in turn will help you reach your own success faster. But having experienced people to talk about past successes is not the only benefit of being with like-minded individuals.
Increased Motivation and Accountability
Not all other like-minded people will necessarily have more experience than you. Some might even have less experience compared to you but that doesn’t make them useless to spend time with. Being with all types of like-minded people, whether they have more, less or the same level of experience compared to you, will have the ability to motivate and inspire you further in working towards your goals. This is something that you definitely can’t get if you work on your goals alone. You miss out on the motivation that others can provide. This is something that I personally notice all the time in my own experience. For example, when I attend training sessions with other ski instructors, whether they are on the snow or indoor educational programs, I always feel more pumped up from the group motivation I feel with my colleagues. This helps me work towards being a better ski instructor myself. You also can get some accountability to ensure that you do the steps that you have to work on in order to progress. This is yet another huge benefit that you can get when you have other people to push you a bit. Quite often, you don’t have any accountability at all when you are solo and therefore can easily slack off on the things you must do to get better.
Look for the Right Groups of People
In order to be with other like-minded people, look for the right groups of individuals in the form of special interest clubs in your area. You can also network with others at events like conferences, meetings and seminars. You can even form your own informal groups of like-minded people to meet on a regular basis to help each other. I will be using this very approach for an area that I am new to: real estate investing. I want to invest in real estate to help secure my own financial future but I’m a newbie in this area. So to help me, I will be checking out real estate investment clubs in my area as well as networking with other like-minded people I meet at seminars. I’m certain that this type of activity will help me make this year my best ever, and it will do the same for you just by adding like-minded people into your regular schedule. Feel free to share below how you would include other like-minded people into your life this year. (Photo credit: Shallow Depth of Field Shot via Shutterstock)
