How does progress occur? 

It may sound like a simple question, but it is actually complex and unlikely to be easily obtained. 

A combination of self discipline, education, trust, self-awareness and goal setting, are all important aspects in obtaining progress.

How have you been able to obtain any progress in anything you’ve focused on? 

Maybe you’ve disregarded the steps that it took for you to get there. 

But, how would you advise someone else arrive if they were to ask you?

Today, we will talk about the building blocks to achieving progress.

Let’s get started.

1) Goals

At a young age, we set our thoughts on objects that we like and interests us. We know we want them, but as we get older, we learn we ourselves need to find a way to get them. We learn quickly to compare what we want to what our parents can provide.

At that point, we start aligning steps to arrive at the goal of getting whatever it is we desire.

For some, maybe that was baseball cards, shoes, snacks, a bike, a book, etc. The point is that we start small. 

In these early stages, it is less complex in how we can obtain our goals. Maybe its just a few short weeks of saving any earned money and then going to buy what we want.

However, when we get older, the goals become more complex and they contain more requirements. 

Perhaps, this could be learning to play a sport, a board game, getting your first job, or even writing a book report on a topic that interests you. 

• There is always a level of education tied to the application of that education and then performance.

We want to perform well at anything we have passion for. These are where goals are set.

In order to obtain those goals we seek information that will help us learn before we begin taking action. 

Setting these goals and trying out several things that interest us is very important. This way you learn quickly if your interest remains on a topic or if your interest is lost. 

See more topics on the subject of personal development here.

This brings us to our next topic.

2) Education

In order to become great at anything, we must first seek out the knowledge to gain understanding. As we gain understanding, we may decide to gain or lose interest in a topic.

If we lose interest, its likely because we’ve encountered a responsibility in the process that we don’t like. Sometimes, we develop more passion for the topic because it challenges us or fits our skillset well. So, it increases our interests.

At this stage, it is now time to find a source to teach us. Some may seek knowledge on their own and some may look for a coach or an instructor on the topic. 

A bad coach or instructor can either negatively affect your ability to develop or could be very helpful in your development. Hopefully the coach (or instructor) is not a deterrent and you receive healthy training to support your development.

The educational stage is very important because this is the stage that will support you being either very proficient or partially ignorant. So, the source of knowledge is very important.

After obtaining the education, next is applying your knowledge.

3) Application

Applying your knowledge is the first step to show how well you understand what you’ve learned. No matter the application of how you’ll show what you’ve learned, you will be graded. This grading may come from your instructor or coach or from yourself.

The application stage teaches you what knowledge you actually retained and what you didn’t retain. 

When you acknowledge this, it shows you what type of learner you are. Are you learning by seeing, doing, reading or listening? Perhaps its all of the above. 

But perhaps some learning styles have more significance to you than others. It is up to you to apply your most beneficial learning strategies so that you learn effectively.

When you test your knowledge in the application stage, often times this sends us back into the knowledge stage to revisit what we may not have fully comprehended.

Once re-learned, you’ve obtained a higher level of confidence which prepares you to move to the next stage.

4) Performance

Its time get back out there to see how you will perform. 

You have the knowledge, you’ve tested your application of your knowledge only to find your opportunities to improve, and now you are ready to test your performance.

Based upon how you perform, you will develop questions. Some questions will be obtainable on your own and some questions will require the instructor’s/coach’s feedback.

Asking questions is important for development because anyone who asks a question is confident enough in their comprehension on a topic and confident enough to formulate a question to be asked. See how much development is involved in simply asking questions?

Often times, people observe others asking questions and gain more comfort in asking their own questions. Or their observation shows them that they may need to stay in the educational stage before they ask their question. 

Don’t make this mistake. A good instructor or coach will never make you feel bad about your question.

A common mistake is that people don’t ask their questions and rely upon themselves to find the answer to save themselves embarrassment. Overcome the fear and discomfort by asking your question. 

It is much healthier to ask the question and get an answer so that you can progress to your next thought. Often times, others have the same question. But, due to lack of confidence they are not asking their question either. 

• Sometimes the student becomes stuck in a learning stage because they don’t find the answer themselves and they didn’t ask. 
• Students can easily fall behind in the learning curve by not being confident enough to ask their questions. 
• To support your success you should see our article on How Do I Get to the Money – Applying the 5 C’s.

This brings us to the next stage of today’s topic.

5) Confidence

As you gain knowledge, and learn to speak to your knowledge well, your confidence improves. 

Knowing when and how to ask questions is a integral portion in achieving this next level of confidence.

Sometimes your comprehension is right on track and you just need small clarifications to support your train of thought. Always ask your questions.

Once confidence is achieved, this is where true growth begins to grow exponentially. 

Confidence allows you to continually ask questions, learn more, grow more and apply these techniques to other aspects of your life. Often times, repeating this process.

The more confidence a person has, provided they trust the environment and people they are around, they can grow exponentially in this stage.

Unfortunately, having people we trust around us is not as common as it should be. 

Most atmospheres contain people competing with each other with no objective of togetherness or teamwork and it breeds unhealthy division. You often hear of this aspect described as company culture.

If the culture of an atmosphere breeds lack of teamwork, allows negativity to thrive and does not reinforce positivity and development of everyone, the atmosphere is not healthy.

Growth will be stunted and the lack of confidence can rear its ugly head again.

Be aware of your environment and support positivity. This will not only support your confidence, but it will support the ability to help achieve confidence for others. 

This will grow your network and provide healthy lessons in what your actions should look like.

6) Teaching

A true sign of high level comprehension, confidence and personal growth, is when teaching begins from the student. Yes you – once the student and now teaching.

The best test in seeing how well you comprehend a topic is to teach it. 

You will quickly learn what you actually understand and what you thought you understood.

• If you can’t explain how something works, you don’t fully understand it. 

When you are in an atmosphere with those that have grown beyond the learning stage and can now teach, you are in an environment of progress. 

Not only are you in an environment of progress, you personally have achieved progress.

Your development path of education, application, performance and confidence has been achieved. The teaching stage is proof that the cycle of development has occurred.

This is a great goal to achieve. In a positive and healthy environment, the growth is endless.

The applications of the growth structure shown today is necessary to obtain progress.

Conclusion

Everyone needs a structure of growth in their lives. 

Knowing how to obtain growth and be supportive of structures that allow growth is key.

We are learning and growing individuals looking to add value to our environments. 

Support each other by creating, supporting and reinforcing positivity. 

Team work is what makes the dream work! Thanks for joining us today!

Love ya and keep striving for growth.

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Please comment how you’ve achieved progress and how you obtained it.