9 Concepts For The Pursuit of Excellence

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I’m sure you’re wondering “What is the pursuit of excellence and why should I care?”. The pursuit of excellence has different results for everyone but the process of achieving excellence are the same. The pursuit of excellence is the idea that you can always keep moving towards your ideal image of yourself. The end goal is to become successful. I’m an advocate for everyone creating their own version of success so what I think is successful may not be what you believe is successful. On the journey to your own success you will learn many things and get to experience more of life than if you sit tight and hope everything falls in place. You are the driver of the car that is your life, you get to make the decisions of where you go. Pursuing excellence is the way to achieve the things you dream of having. If you spend the time learning how to take the next step in life, someday you will have walked to your goals. Now that we have what the pursuit of excellence is on our mind, let’s take a look at 9 concepts that will help you get started on your pursuit of excellence.

1. Find What Gives You Motivation And Leverage It

When you trying to find your motivator you will need to ask two questions. What is my one thing that motivates me to do everything?  The second question is why is this one things so important to me? Your one thing and your why should give you an emotional response when you think about it. My one thing is my family. I do everything so that my family can live a better life, so that they don’t have to live through the hardships that I did. If you don’t feel an emotional connection with you motivator dig deeper and find something that drives you towards excellence.

2. Make Big Goals That Can Be Broken Down

A big goal can seem impossible to reach. The best thing you can do for yourself is to make your goal bigger than you think you can ever achieve. Once you have your BIG goal break it down into manageable piece. If you can break your goal down to what you can do today, this week, this month, this year, or in 5 years. You will be able to achieve parts of your goals making the big goal not seem as bad. If your goal is 10 time bigger than you planned and you reach 10 percent, you reached your original goal.

3. Create a Vision Board

A vision board can tie together your why with your goal. You should create a vision board and hang it somewhere that you will see everyday. Your vision board should include your big thing and your why. Use words and pictures that excite you and give you inspiration. As your goals evolve add to your vision board.

4. Track Your Progress

One of the hardest parts of pursuing excellence is keeping on track and moving towards your goal. Finding a way to keep track of your progress will help you see that you are moving in the right direction. When you feel good about your progress it will be easier to keep moving forward.

5. Find a Mentor to Guide You

A mentor is someone that has already achieved what you want. If you find someone that is ready to teach you what they’ve learned they can kick your progress into high gear. Your mentor will have already made more mistakes and learned more than you can imagine. Take their advice and you will improve faster than you thought possible.

6. Tell The People Around You

The people you spend most of your time with have a huge influence on your life. If you tell them what you are doing and they are supportive stick with them. If they question why you want more for yourself find new people that will support you.  The higher the achievers you spend time with the more their personalities will be ingrained in yours and you will achieve more.

7. Be Confident in Your Choices

Confidence is a huge factor in the way the world sees you. Make sure that you always are firm with your decisions, your whys and you goals. Once you move forward don’t look back and question why you didn’t make a different choice. Own what you have and work with it.

8. Keep Learning When You’re Passionate

Your passion is the most important thing for your dream. If you love working on cars, doing math, creating website, or working with money, never stop learning about it. If you keep learning you will one day become an expert in your field. That is one example of excellence and success.  Never stop learning.

9. Never Give Up

Giving up is the best way to achieve failure. Never give up on yourself. You may have to change paths or look at things from a different perspective but never give up. With enough trial and error, someday you will achieve everything you’ve ever wanted. I’ve decided to dedicate my life to helping others improve theirs. If you want to be part of helping others pursue excellence and become successful in their own way, sign up for our email updates so you can be part of the movement towards a better life.

7 Benefits of Listening to Audiobooks

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Audiobook Benefits in a Nutshell

Have you ever wondered if audiobooks have any benefits? What about what the benefits of audiobooks may be? If you answered yes to those questions I can tell you you’re in the right place. Sometimes it can be hard to sit down with a book for a half hour to an hour each day. One of the best ways to combat that is through the use of audiobooks. They are really a game changer when it comes getting your daily dose of book in. Think about this for a minute, when was the last time you had a chance to read a book? When was the last time you asked someone what books they’ve been reading? The sad true is that we live in a time with access to information constantly but people don’t read as often as they could. You may be wondering what the real benefits of audiobooks are, I have found 7 that I think are most worthwhile.

1)  Audiobooks Are Easy To Listen To While Doing Other Tasks

This is pretty self explanatory but I’ll give you some examples. Audiobooks are great to use in place of music when you are doing things like driving, exercising, cleaning, cooking, or maybe even at work. You will be amazed at how many more books you can listen to when you start playing them all the time. This reason by itself makes audiobooks worth it. Imagine how nice it would be to listen to your favorite motivational book at the office or a thriller while you’re cleaning your house.

2) Audiobooks Are Great For Dyslexics

I came across this after talking with a few of my friends about books. I knew one of them was dyslexic but had never considered how it would affect how often they read. We were discussing how often someone should read and they complained about how difficult it was. I pointed out that audiobooks are a great alternative. They tried it out and became hooked on the idea of listening to audiobooks. The is also one of the benefits of audiobooks for students. I know people that struggled with textbooks because of dyslexia. Most schools offer software that will turn textbooks into audiobooks.

3) Listen To Them With Others

Listening to audiobooks with friends and coworkers has been a fun experience. It gives you a chance to hear other people’s opinions about a book. It is like going out to the movies. In the end everyone has the same ideas to talk about and it’s fun to dig into what could be going on in the background of the book’s universe. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline was the first experience I had with how great audiobooks can be. After listening to that books with my coworkers we are all excited to go see the movie when it comes out. Fingers crossed that it will be a good one. 

4) Listening To Audiobooks While Reading The Book

This one sounds strange but it works out really well. Reading and listening to audiobooks at the same time gives you more things to remember. It ties into Edgar Dale’s cone of learning. That is an interesting topic that I can talk about another day. What you need to know is the more ways you do something and the more work it takes to do those things the easier it is to remember. I’ve used listening to the audiobook while reading the book to learn about stock options, real estate investing, stoicism, and starting a business. None of those topics are easy but I think listening to the audiobooks while I read helped me with retention. This is one of the biggest benefits to audiobooks.

5) More Simple Than Reading a Summary

Unless you are in a big rush to read through a summary for some reason audiobooks are a great option. It is painless to listen to a audiobook. On the other hand you could buy a summary which won’t give you all the details. An alternative would be to jump on Reddit. I know that great summaries can end up on Reddit but you have to be careful about what people are saying. It’s easy to leave out important details. If it were up to me when picking audiobooks vs reading Reddit, I’m going to go with an audiobook 9 times out of 10. There is a lot to be said about sticking with a community though and if you find the right one the users on Reddit will treat you right.

6) Audiobooks Are Great For Adults

The benefits of audiobooks for adults pretty much covers everything I’ve mentioned plus more. Adults are the largest group of people in the world. Many of them are limited on time. Not only that but as you get older your eyesight can decrease. Audiobooks counteract that because you can listen to them instead of reading them. Adults are also limited on time bringing back the benefits of listening while you do other things. It also ties into the last benefit I have to talk about.

7)  Adjustable Speed

One of the coolest benefits of audiobooks is that you can adjust the speed. I personally like to listen at anywhere from 1.5x to 2.5x speed. It all depends on how many times I’ve listened to the book, how the voice actors voice sounds sped up, and how hard to comprehend the books is. I usually recommend starting off at 1x to 1.5x and going from there when you are new to audiobooks. This is not the time to listen with your friends they will probably look at you weird when you start playing a chipmunk book at them.

The Benefits Are Real

As you can see there are many benefits to audiobooks. I’m sure if you sit there and think about it you can come up with a few more on your own. Now that you’re thinking about audiobooks you should check out Audible from Amazon. They seem to really know what they are doing. Once you started you’ll see that audiobooks are good for the brain. There aren’t too many other ways to have fun while you learn. It’s nice to know that you can listen with friends when you have a fun book or you can read along with a hard copy if it’s something more serious. Don’t forget how many audiobook benefits there are. Now get out there are start listening. If you want to see more post like this sign up to the newsletter and share on your favorite social media.