When you and I were born, we didn’t know anything. We came into the world with a blank slate. Everything we know and believe right now is made up from our experiences, influences, and the environments we put ourselves in (or got put in).
The great thing about self-development and life skills is you quickly find out that you’re in a lot more control than you think when it comes to your life. You can choose who you want to become and achieve what you want to achieve. Everything is possible. The only person stopping you is you.
I operate under this mindset:
I published this article to explain in detail the three (3) life skills that I have learned to be most effective for learning anything and creating success, fast.
I truly believe everything is a skill that you can learn. You can learn social skills, charisma, business, construction, leadership, confidence, speed reading, nutrition, jiu-jitsu, photography, body building, hell, making money is even a skill.
3 Crucial Life Skills for Learning & Succeeding, Fast:
(1) Self-Awareness
Self-a-ware-ness: possessing conscious knowledge of one’s own character, feelings, motives, and desires.
Self-awareness is the secret sauce. There is no self-improvement without self-awareness. The more you know about yourself, the better you are at adapting life changes that suit your needs.
If you don’t know what your strengths are and what your weaknesses are, how can you learn? How can you reach your full potential?
For example, I’m 100% aware that I’m a terrible student. I’m not book smart at all. I don’t focus well, reading and comprehension takes a lot of effort. Anything technical bores me. I don’t enjoy rules, codes, or details. These things take a lot of extra effort on my part in situations where I need to become competent.
On the flip side, I’m very strong with people. I know how to read people, make people feel a certain way, and persuade them so we both get our way. I can sell you on almost anything. These are the things that I naturally excel at and enjoy very much.
Essentially, the more you pay attention to your emotions and how you work, the better you’ll understand why you do the things you do. The more you know about your own habits, the easier it is to improve on those habits.
Self-awareness is being totally honest with yourself. This is what makes self-awareness difficult. A lot of people I see in the world get stuck because they can’t honestly analyze themselves.
What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Are you introverted or extroverted? What triggers stress you and how do you cope with the stress? What’s your communication style? How do you manage conflict? How do you respond to authority? What inspires you? What derails you?
The honest answers to these questions are pure GOLD. Achieving self-awareness is challenging and a lifelong effort. The earlier you start to work on yourself, the more self-aware you’ll become, and the more likely “the powers that be” will recognize your leadership potential and accelerate your learning curve.
A great tool and great place to start to increase your self-awareness is to take the DiSC Personality Test.
Many of the most successful companies and organizations are using this tool to understand their employees and using it to build successful teams and maximize the potential of the organization.
Honestly, taking this test should be non-negotiable, self-awareness is that important. In fact, this should be a requirement in high schools instead of taking the ACT; which I bombed by the way.
The “D” stands for Dominance. A dominant person is a very task-oriented, hard-driving person who looks to solve problems and is always asking, “When?” They make great team members because they always want to keep the company moving. About 10% of the public is the D personality.
The “I” stands for “Influencer.” This person is people oriented, fun, outgoing, and generally a party looking for a place to happen. They are expressive, persuasive, and make decisions quickly. They are really fun to be around and have on your team. People who know me well know I’m a dominant “I” personality.
The “S” stands for “Steady.” This person is unbelievably loyal and stable. They love people and are concerned about how everyone feels. About 40% of the world is in the “S” quadrant personality.
The “C” Stands for “Compliant.” This person is all about the details and is very consequently, very analytical, factual, and loves the rules. You must know the rules and follow the rules if you are a C style – not following the rules is not only wrong, it represents a failure of integrity. These people can seem rigid and resistant to change, but they will always have high levels of competency. They are also great team members and you for sure want some in your accounting department! About 25% of the world is the “C” personality.
NOTE: There is no right or wrong personality. Every type of personality has an equal opportunity to be successful. The only wrong personality is the personality in the wrong position or using the wrong strategy.
If you were wondering, here are my DiSC Personality Test Results:
DiSC Pattern: PERSUADER
- Dominance: 5/7
- Influence: 7/7
- Steadiness: 2/7
- Compliance: 2/7
Here is an excerpt from my feedback: “Kyle, you are high in the influence dimension. As a result, you are likely to be focused on shaping your environment by influencing or persuading others. As a Persuader, Kyle, you tend to have a naturally positive outlook that draws people to you. High “I’s” require freedom of expression and steer clear of too much detail or control. Outside of the workplace, high “I’s” typically enjoy participating in group activities where they can meet new people and cultivate a wide range of friendships. They pride themselves on their ability to articulate their ideas, and they enjoy engaging others in conversation.”
Do you see how powerful this information can be? You can use this information to increase your self-awareness and position yourself to learn and succeed fast. Take the test!
The message here is this: Know yourself. Avoid the romantic version of who you think you are, and realize who you actually are. You will learn and succeed 10X faster.
(2) Adaptability
Adaptability or flexibility means being able to change as circumstances require it. It recognizes that life will bring us unforeseen challenges and if we are to honor our values and goals, we must adjust and learn as we go.
Flexibility means open ourselves to influenced or educated rather than getting stuck in our own desires or ways of thinking. It lets us go with the flow of a group rather than becoming frustrated or alienated.
I’ve been studying success for a long time. Successful people are extremely adaptable, they’re not set in their ways. If something is not working out and not getting them the results they want, they will change on a dime, without feeling stupid or feeling bad about it.
Water takes the form of any shape you give it. Water doesn’t care, it has no shape. Water is both adaptable and flexible.
Listen to the right people, ask for feedback, and don’t get sad when you hear something you don’t like. Just adapt.
(3) Humility
Michael Jordan has inwardly humility; cocky but he listens to everything his coaches say.
Sam Walton (Walmart) has outwardly humility. He spent more time at his competitors store than his own. Sam was looking for the things that his competitors might of known that he didn’t. The Walmart empire was created from humility.
Humility is the quality of being humble. We need insane amounts of humility to learn fast and double our results. The humility to learn from everyone, to let go of our pride. To look at people who are ahead of us and see what they’re doing that we’re not. The humility to get down on our own hands and knees to find out what it is that we need to know from others. The humility to ask, with the risk of rejection or looking stupid.
Humility can accelerate our learning curve immensely. The humility to seek out a mentor and learn from them. The humility to learn from others, and not be a know it all.
In conclusion, these are three (3) proven life skills that will make learning new things and success inevitable.
Self-Awareness, Adaptability, & Humility – The Triple Threat.
I guarantee you that if you work on increasing these life skills, 95% of the companies in the world will hire you.
It will be easily seen in the way you walk, talk, think, and act. The authorities in the world will be able to see it in you from a mile away.
No one said it would be easy, but it will be worth it.
Much love,
???? ?????