When it comes to learning something new, developing a skill, or achieving a GOAL, such as becoming a better photographer, there are three things you need to consider, these are:
- Acquiring the relevant KNOWLEDGE
- Finding the appropriate level of MOTIVATION
- and moving forward in a PRODUCTIVE manner
Motivation
The WHY is the most important aspect of your journey. This is what drives you forward. When you come across obstacles it’s THE WHY that will help you to overcome them. Make sure you’re doing what you’re doing or about to do what you’re about to do, for the right reasons. Don’t do it for other people, do it because you passionately want to do it yourself.
I’ve put Motivation at the bottom of the pyramid, in the illustration above, for the simple reason that it’s the basis for any progress forward, without it you just aren’t going to follow-through.
As well as finding the drive to move forward, there is a force that is actively working against you. This force is FEAR, fear of failure, fear or moving outside your comfort zone, even fear of success. Carefully look into your psyche and examine what is stopping you biting the bullet and taking the next important step towards your goal, you’ll inevitably find some form of fear is the culprit.
Knowledge
The HOW is next for us to take a look at. Acquiring the relevant knowledge is our next consideration in the process. Knowledge acquisition is twofold,
- finding reliable sources and
- obtain accurate information from them
When it comes to finding reliable sources of information, the best advice I can give you, is to find someone who has achieved whatever you’re aiming to achieve. If you want to learn about photography for instance, then who better to take advice from, than a professional photographer? Someone who makes a living from the very thing you want to learn about.
Consider finding a mentor who is willing to devote some of their time to helping you out, also consider mastermind teams or role models as sources of information. On the subject of learning photography, I have lots of free information on this site to help you do just that. Alternatively check out my one to one photography tutorials which are designed to hold your hand through the learning process.
So in summary, finding someone who offers advice and knows what they’re talking about, is the takeaway from this section of the article.
Productivity
Last but not least is, the WHAT and WHEN. These are the fundamentals of productivity. Productivity is not about being efficient, it’s about being effective, and there is a big difference between the two. It’s about getting the most important things boxed off. Find the one, most important thing that can be done to get maximum impact and do it. Ask yourself, “What’s the one thing I can do now such by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary.” The difficulty is often identifying what your priorities should be, what’s important and what’s not. Again our one to one photography tutorials will get you over this problem and set you up on the right path.
So there you have it, stick to the Get Results model outlined above and that is exactly what you’ll get, RESULTS. Check out the get results model here for more information, well worth a look, and never forget to enjoy the journey. Life is not a destination.