‘Tale Alimi: 5 Ways to Get Ahead

I meet people every day who are seeking to get ahead in life. Ahead for some might be a new job, for some it might be a promotion on their current job and for others it might be more profit or growth in their business. For some people getting ahead might be an intangible achievement like finding the right relationship or losing weight. The truth is we are all constantly seeking ways to make progress and get ahead in life.

Before you start the journey of getting ahead, you must ask yourself why? Your motive has to be strong enough and important enough to ‘you’ to get you motivated to take action. You have to want it for yourself and not because someone told you it is the logical thing to do. Once you have clarified your why and you are ready to get ahead, here are 5 things you should do:

Surround Yourself with Positive People
Research has shown that ‘Man’ is the specie that is most prone to the opinions of others. Our lives usually go in the direction of our most dominant thoughts and our thoughts are usually influenced by the voices we allow speak to us. So who are you allowing to speak to you? Which voices are you listening to? You need people around you who would encourage and challenge you to take steps and make decisions to get ahead. As Brian Tracy said; your life is the average of the 5 people you surround yourself with, so consciously make a decision to surround yourself with positive people who would propel you ahead and not negative people who would slow you down.

Invest in Yourself
The most important investment you would make is an investment in yourself. By this I mean an investment in your personal development. Material things get old or worn out, but an investment in knowledge never grows old. If you want to get ahead, invest in learning and acquiring the knowledge you need that would increase your value. You can get knowledge by reading books, investing in courses and training programs. Always set learning goals and work towards achieving it and you would find yourself moving ahead.

Find a Mentor or Coach
A mentor should be someone who has achieved what you want to achieve or something similar to what you want to achieve. A coach should be someone who can guide you to achieve what you want to achieve and hold you accountable through the process. You need these people in your life because they would help to reduce your learning curve and you don’t have to spend years trying to find out how to achieve something someone else has already achieved. There are various ways of getting mentored by someone you don’t have direct access to, some of the ways are: reading their book or written information and attending their programs or events they speak in. The important thing is to identify a mentor and be committed to learning from them. Getting a coach is straight forward as you can contact them and find out about their services and their fee packages. Some coaches have this information on their websites.

Embrace Excellence
Excellence is the quality of being outstanding and extremely good. People who are outstanding always stand out! And when you stand out, you would most likely get ahead. Excellence is not perfection; it is a decision to be the best you can be in what you do. If you run a business, strive to be excellent in offering your product and services. If you work a job, strive to do and be the best at what you do. A lot of people are satisfied with doing ‘just enough’, so if you do just enough, you would be like most people. If you want to get ahead, decide to be excellent at what you do.

Keep moving
There is a lot of conversation about work life balance and while it is great to make time for various areas of your life, it is difficult to be balanced and mobile. Sharon Letcher: Author of Think and grow rich for women (Co-author of Rich dad, poor dad) say that balance is a myth. She says if you are balanced, you are not moving. The words ‘get ahead’ depicts motion, so movement is important to get ahead. Movement could mean trying something new, getting new information, creating a new product or service etc. Whatever it means to you, you have to keep moving.

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