How To Change Your Life: Part 3 – Learn What You Need to Know

Colin — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:26:57 +0000

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This is the third post in a series on how to change your life. If you want to start at the beginning of the series, head on over to: How To Change Your Life: Part 1 – Become Clear.

If you followed the instructions in the last post in this series, you have your thoughts and feelings aligned with the goals you clarified in step one. Now you’re ready for the next step…

Learn what you need to know – the skills, knowledge, and experience you need in order to achieve your goals.

Why Learning Is Important

Taking action is important to reach your goals, but sometimes you don’t have the knowledge, skills, or experience you need to take smart action.

Taking smart action means doing things effectively and efficiently. In order to do that you need to know the best ways of getting things done.

The more knowledge you have about how to achieve your goals, the faster, and easier it will be to achieve them.

So how can you acquire the knowledge, skills, and experience you need? Read on…

The Different Ways You Can Learn

Use Jobs For Experience

If you’re looking to start your own business, a great way to learn what you need to know is to work for another business in the same industry. I’ve heard of many people who successfully used this approach.

So if you want to open a bake shop, work for a baker. If you want to open a restaurant, work for another restaurant… You get the idea.

While you’re working, you can learn how things are done, what suppliers and products are available, what prices to charge, and how the business is run. It’s an excellent way to prepare yourself for opening your own business.

A Mentor

Another excellent way to aquire the knowledge you need to succeed is to find someone else who has either already achieved what you would like to achieve. Or their are at least well on their way to doing it.

These people can offer excellent advice and guidance to help you do the same. Often they are more than happy to offer advice to people just starting out. All you need to do is ask. Otherwise, it’ might be a good idea to offer to help them out in whatever way you can in exchange for their help in return. That way, both parties benefit.

If you don’t already know someone who would make a good mentor, try looking for them wherever you think they might be hanging out. Industry conferences and business meet-up groups are a great place to start.

Reading

Books, magazines, and the internet are also fantastic resources to learn what you need to know. If you can’t afford to buy your own books, your local library can be an invaluable resource.

School and Courses

Consider taking a course, or getting a diploma or degree in your desired field. Many local colleges offer correspondence or night classes if you can’t go to school full-time.

Learn From Your Mistakes and Problems

Don’t let the learning phase of changing your life hold you back from taking action. You can actually learn a lot as you go along.

When you take action toward your goals, and things don’t turn out as planned, there’s always a lesson to be learned.

Start analyzing why things didn’t work out. What happened? Why did it happen?

Once you know the cause of the problem, start brainstorming ways that you can prevent it from happening again.

Don’t Wait Until You Know Everything

Learning is important, but you shouldn’t let it stop you from taking action right now using what you already know. If you know just enough to take even one small step toward your goal, go ahead and get started. You don’t need to wait to start changing your life. You can continue to learn while you take action.

Are you ready for the next stage of learning how to change your life? Excellent! Join me in my next post where I’ll be discussing more about taking action toward your goals.

Practical Self Help » learning