Good Student, Great Results
Lately I've been thinking about what makes a "good student". The reason this is on my mind is that I just recently opened and closed the doors to my signature coaching program, Crickets to Customers, so I've got a bunch of new students who are going through the materials and coaching with me. As I welcome these new folks into the program, I, of course, want them to be set up for success. And it made me realize that there is so much more that goes into learning a new skill and leveling up your business.
It's actually really important to go into any new environment, but especially a learning environment, with a great mindset. If we go into it with the right mindset, we're going to get better results.
So what does it take to be a good student, and especially a good student of life? In this episode, I wanted to talk about things to keep an eye out for when you're going into any learning environment, whether you purchase a course, hire a coach, or even buy a book -- any time that you have the intention of learning something new and doing something different.
Here's a sneak peek of what's in store:
The importance of staying open [03:23]
"I already know this" [09:13]
Temptation to skip ahead [12:39]
Not implementing [15:32]
Giving up completely when you fall behind [20:37]
It's important to stay open
I really believe that the best students are the ones who feel they are never done learning. As soon as you adopt the mindset of feeling like you've already learned everything that there is to know about XYZ subject, you really start to get yourself in trouble.
We have to keep in mind just how much that openness can honestly explode you in a new direction that you didn't know was possible.
"I already know this" syndrome
I see this mistake being made all the time, and some of my favorite students actually very openly admit that they have fallen into this one. It's the most common issue, and it is also the issue that most other issues come from.
"I already know this. I've already done it. I don't need to do this. I'm more advanced than this."
How many times have you heard yourself saying this? I know I have.
The truth is that you're never done with the fundamentals, because that's the bedrock upon which everything else is built.
"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten."
So if you ever catch yourself saying "I already know this, I think I'm safe to skip this part," I really ask you again to go back to staying open. Stay open to the possibility that you might go through what you think is really basic and get a new insight that wasn't available to you before, because you're a different person now with different experiences.
The temptation to skip ahead
If you've ever enrolled in courses and found yourself trying to cherry pick your way through, it doesn't mean you're not a good student. It's because you're busy, and sometimes it feels like you don't have time for the basics. You just want to see the advanced tactics.
It goes back to the first problem we talked about, the one where you assume that you don't need that "beginner" stuff. So when you try to skip ahead, you inevitably end up trying to take on too much. You get overwhelmed, and overwhelm so often leads to burnout and quitting. And, as we know, quitting is like the final frontier -- we want to avoid quitting at all costs.
So we can't skip ahead. You've got to trust the process.
Not implementing
Another way to think about this is if you're just watching, and not doing. How many times have you listened to a podcast, or watched a lesson inside of a course, and then just let it kind of wash over you and didn't actually go do the thing that was taught?
Here's the thing about implementing: adults learn by doing and by implementing. We're not like children, who can hear something once and it's in their memory forever. As an adult, the only way something is going to stick with you is if you actually put it into practice, and get those insights that only come from you doing it.
Really good students ask themselves, how am I going to tweak my setup to implement this thing that I just read or watched? What am I actually going to implement?
"You're going to end up going back to the same lessons and the same podcast episodes because it's not sticking. So make it easier on yourself. Cut your time in half in terms of how much learning you're doing, and commit to doing something."
And it doesn't mean that you have to implement everything -- you don't want to get overwhelmed. Just pick one thing that you can do differently and pick your biggest take-away.
Giving up completely when you fall behind
This is a heartbreaker for me, because I see it all the time. It's so tempting for you, especially if you're a perfectionist or a high achiever, to think that if you fall off track that you have to give up completely.
Most courses or programs are inevitably long enough that something is going to come up in your life during that time. And at least at one point, if not multiple points over those several weeks, you're going to fall behind. It's not a question of if, it's a question of when.
The question is not how to do it perfectly. The question you need to ask yourself is how are you going to adjust and how are you going to rebound? I truly believe that my most successful students adopt an image of imperfect progress, which means that progress is better than perfection, and doing something is better than nothing.
Waiting for perfect conditions means that we never take a step forward.
As we wrap up, I know that we all want great results -- those sold-out offers, the six or seven figure business, those effortless sales. Great results come to good students -- not the high-achieving gold-star chasers, but those who constantly ask themselves: How can I stay open? How can I keep learning? How can I keep showing up?
So stay in the game and commit to continuing to learn and further your skills -- that's how you get great results.