Do As I Do

OR DO AS I SAY

People like to go their own way. They may seem to be taking valuable advice, but still not heed it. They don't want to do things my or your way. They would sooner do it their own way - even if it's wrong. They can't trust the fact that we may have had a beneficial learning experience and therefore in a better position to pass that knowledge on. But this is nothing unusual. Trust is a valuable commodity that has to be earned and the art of convincing takes time to learn.

Youngsters, it seems, are know-it-alls by 25. They have little focus and constantly flit around. This is because they can. They're young. They have the luxury of having time on their side to learn from mistakes. But being older doesn't necessarily mean being any the wiser either. Many older people are holding on to the errors made in their earlier years and have become stuck in their ways - stubborn and inflexible to change. They stick to what they know even when it's clearly not paying dividends.

Generally, I'm a lone wolf rather than a team player. I don't blindly take other people's advice, but I do try to find the best way of accomplishing things by following another's advice. I tend to go with what I know best, but ultimately, it's my way or the high way a lot of the time. So it follows that for a lot of the time, I'm alone on my highway. This is a shame, because I believe I've made some marked success in what I do. But it's not always the easy or the conformed way of doing things, so many prefer to take their own conventional route rather than risk relying on me. And it's this questioning of my competence, ability and expertise that I find frustrating. It wears me down and hence why I'm often doing things my own way. There's only so much effort we can put in to convince others to join our way of thinking. But, because I'd really like to give something back to the human race, I'm going to require some patience in order to learn how to best convince others.

Conviction At Work

It takes a multitude of communications skills to win people over. Without these skills, we can fail to convince others of our wants, desires and needs. It's something I've only had a small amount of success with in the past and often been a struggle for me working in the studio as a designer. I will put my best efforts creating something I'm happy with, only to find someone heavily opinionated (not necessarily talented or right), making changes for no real significant gain, possibly compromising the design/idea and/or taking the credit/shirking the blame in the process. They essentially are masters of communication, confidence and conviction. Creative work is always subjective and everyone considers themselves to be a qualified designer or creative on some level. Being a designer, photographer or a writer - the same applies for these professions too. Until you get the credibility, you'll always have to battle to get your opinions heard. We'll never escape the critics and disbelievers - nobody ever does, but through learning the skills of communication to convince others - we'll be heard more of the time.

Training someone for fitness is also just as hard, as people really don't want to listen to the dietary advice or commit to the sessions. The results aren't immediate enough for them and they are quick to give up following our advice. Hence, this is another role where I've become coarse talking on deaf ears. But, at the end of the day, it's because we all think we know best.

Remember The Mentors

There are always going to be others with more experience and skill than us. We need to know who these people are and when to listen to them. I have spent almost a year investigating better ways to improve myself. These newfound ideas are not my own, I have learned them from others. They are easy to discover on your own, but why not look at someone who has discovered them already? My skills for convincing you to believe in me are currently lacking. I will write a book in 2016. I'll give it my best shot and pour my heart & soul into it. I've never written a book before and it might not be any good. But without my powers of communication and confidence, how will my discovered and shared ideas be followed and appreciated?

Humility & Confidence
So it pays to take advice from someone who really knows what they are doing. But we don't like information being force fed to us. Without having some humility - the art of being humble - we could be seen as too arrogant or self-obsessed. Being able to recognise the value, opinions and guidance from a teacher/elder & wiser person - that's the only time when I do as others say. So, we all need to better learn how to give the time, respect, to listen & learn from others, in order to learn how we can make these improvements in ourselves for passing on our own teachings.