Learning the Game

I can honestly say that – WHATEVER YOUR GOAL – learning the game, becoming a student of the game, will help you get you the results you want. Why? Because you will take the time to inform yourself of the path ahead, and by doing so, you will increase your chances of success by a very large margin.

Regardless of the event, the industry, or the focus of your goal – it is critical to learn about the game, the rules of the game, and the best way to meet the objective of the game. The only way to do this is to become a student of the game.

What does all this mean? Honestly, it’s a lot simpler than it sounds! Delving in a little deeper, let’s use an example of publishing a book along with an example of running. Say your goal is to publish a book you have written. You will want to follow these steps:

1. Learn About the Game: Determine the category your goal falls in. In the example of publishing, is your book fiction or non-fiction? In the example of running, are you interested mainly in getting fit or, do you need to know more about endurance for, say, a half-marathon?

Once you know the category your goal falls in, you will know where to begin gleaning information to educate yourself. If you have written a non-fiction book on Chinese Wedding Traditions, for example, learning about publishers that focus on fiction isn’t going to help you much. Taking that a bit further, you will need to focus on the type of non-fiction book you are wanting to market.

Likewise, if you are mostly interested in endurance training, learning the ins and outs of strengthening your body for a half-marathon are most important on your list. While you could certainly receive worthwhile information by looking at fitness as a whole, you needed to focus more in order to truly “get it.”

Know your goal. Know the goal’s industry. Know the category.

2. Learn the Rules of the Game. Okay, so you know the category your goal falls into. Now, it’s time to learn the rules for that category. Again, using publishing as an example, you want to find the best publisher for your book on Chinese Wedding Traditions. Where do you start? What about the example of learning how to gain endurance for running a half-marathon? Where would you start?

Regardless of the industry, regardless of the category, there are people who have gone before you. Many of those people have written books, articles, created Web sites, and train or teach others how to be successful. These are the resources you want to tap! I recommend starting on the Internet because it’s a free resource that can give you a ton of information very quickly.

After you’ve spent some time researching on the net, you may find books, audio-books, DVDs, or even organizations devoted to what you’re trying to learn about. It’s completely up to you how you choose to educate yourself at this point. You can join some of these organizations, hire a trainer or a coach, purchase a book or five, or any combination of the resources available to you that you want.

Educate yourself. Study the rules. Learn the rules.

3. Learn the best way to meet the Objective of the Game. You’ve spent some time educating yourself on the ins and outs of the industry and the category of your goal. You have a lot more information about this than you previously did – CONGRATULATIONS! Now, take this information and you apply it to your personal goal.

Back to our example of publishing a non-fiction book on Chinese Wedding Traditions, the research conducted should give a clear idea of the correct publishers that would be interested in this type of book. Along with this, the knowledge of how to approach these publishers should also have been learned. Now, you know the proper way to begin meeting your objective.

In the goal of running a half-marathon, you should learn about running in particular. How you need to train and what to do each step of the way, such as the best way to increase your endurance, stretching exercises for before and after you run, and additional tips that will help you plan your attack. All of this knowledge will allow you to better plan so you will be ready to run a half-marathon when the time comes.

Research the rules. Understand the rules. Plan your attack.

4. Becoming a Student of the Game. By following the above three steps, you can become a student of any game! This is the best way to achieve the goal in front of you, regardless of what your goal is.

You absolutely need to acclimate yourself as much as possible. This will allow you to SUCCEED, which is the point of making a goal, isn’t it?

When you take the time to educate yourself and plan accordingly, even the seemingly most difficult objectives become easier to manage.

ü Learn About YOUR Game.

ü Learn the Rules of YOUR Game.

ü Meet YOUR objective.

People all over the world are learning new things every day. Education is an important facet in life, in all professions, and in almost every single thing we do.