Maximize Your Learning Efforts
Image via WikipediaNetwork Marketing is largely involved with teaching and learning. In fact, throughout every process of the business you could say that to some degree, you are consistently either in the process of teaching or learning. The great part about network marketing is that you learn while you earn. The quicker you learn, the quicker you can earn.
This business can have a large learning curve for many people which can inhibit the growth of your business if not approached correctly. There are a few things you can do to accelerate your learning curve and grasp the subject quickly, that you can teach to your team which will contribute to growing your business faster.
5 Attitudes for Effective Learning
If you use the following 5 guidelines, you can significantly increase the speed at which you learn.
1 Desire
Your desire for learning the information must be personal, and aimed at the end result. A willingness to follow a system for success is important, but the only way to master a subject is to possess a true desire to learn it.
2 Motivation
This is not about getting psyched up and excited. It is about asking yourself, Whats in it for me The more reasons you come up with to study the material, and learn from those who are successful, the more you will get out of the learning experience.
3 Relevance
The more connections you make to the relevance of what you are learning and what it is that you want, the more that you will be able to retain and later apply.
4 Anticipation
Looking forward to your learning experience like a child before Christmas can greatly benefit your ability to learn.
5 Positive Expectation
If you expect to learn easily and get the most from your experience, then you position yourself to retain more of what you learn.
All attitudes are learned behaviors, and you can therefore apply these five attributes to all your learning experiences by simply choosing to do so.
Use Multiple Senses to Teach and Learn
When anyone starts a new business for the first time, saying there is a lot to learn is an understatement.
Most network marketing companies use training calls, large company events, and also smaller support meetings. In addition, there is reading and support material such as audio and video that is available for people to learn from. Take advantage of as many of these different tools as you can, to help you and your team master the business most efficiently.
Learning often has a sour taste in many peoples minds. This is because most people associate learning with only one or maybe two teaching styles that did not suit their preferences. Without getting metaphysical, there are 5 senses you currently use to take in all information.
1. Through your eyes
2. Through your ears
3. Through your mouth
4. Through your nose
5. Through touch
When learning and teaching, unless we are dealing with culinary arts, chemistry, or a few other fields we can safely take out the senses of smell and taste.
This leaves us with three main senses for taking in information. Through seeing, through hearing, and through physically experiencing.
You may have one preferred way of learning information, as many people do. Studies that have been done in this arena indicate the following:
35 of people are visual learners
25 of people are auditory learners
40 of people are physical or kinesthetic learners
These are primary learning preferences. No one learns from only one primary learning style, it is just how they learn the best. In order to maximize our learning potential and increase our memory retention it is important to utilize all three senses and be aware as to what is our primary learning style.
Sometimes we cannot always influence how the information we learn is being given to us. There are fortunately many things that we can do to raise awareness, create multi sensory practices, and utilize our personal primary learning style to ingrain the information given to us.
If you are a visual learner, it will help you to see the information, to read it, and to imagine it in your mind.
If you are an auditory learner, it will help you to ask questions, listen to audio CDs about the subject, and read it out loud to yourself.
If you are a kinesthetic learner, it will help you to get hands on practice, create a walk through, create tests and take them your self or teach the subject to someone else in a way that they understand.
Everything you do in network marketing is usually duplicated to some degree by your downline. If you help them to discover their learning preferences, training efforts can be most effective.
The key to learning anything quickly is to find out which practices in each area works for you and to use them all, because the goal is multi-sensory learning. This is so important because you actually have a different memory storage area for what you see, hear, and do Having the same information delivered in different ways creates new connections in your brain between neurons and dendrites that have never previously been connected. In this way, you can learn quicker, and remember more. Programming Your Mind For Accomplishment
If you can think of one successful learning experience that you have had in your life, then you can train yourself to have an entirely new attitude of self-confidence around learning a new subject. Think of a time when you were able to immediately grasp a new concept. Perhaps it is an area when others may have struggled at first, but you were able to get it right away. It could be something as simple as learning a new card game, or understanding driving directions to an unfamiliar place.
Choosing an experience that gave you a positive emotion in your ability to learn can quickly alter your state of mind, and begin to replace negative programming that may have previously inhibited your learning capabilities.
Our minds never forget experiences we have had, only the ability to recall them consciously. We tend to block out experiences that have caused us pain. However, they do not disappear. They only become suppressed, showing up later as behaviors when similar situations arise.
This can be especially true if you have traumatic negative associations with learning. For example: Somebody who was told they had a learning disability as a child, and was constantly made fun of during school, might possibly have a great deal of negative mental conditioning around their ability to learn a new subject.
They may have even changed their conscious beliefs that they do not have a learning disability. However, many years of negative mental patterns may have conditioned them to behave in certain ways which limits their ability to learn and can further reinforce their previous beliefs that they are a poor learner.
If you have had a similar experience that might be limiting your ability to learn, you can change this pattern. By choosing a time in your life that you were able to experience positive emotion in your ability to learn, you can reverse this mental pattern over time.
By continuously focusing upon this positive experience, making it bigger brighter and more emotionally stimulating, you can come back to this mental picture at any time you feel uneasy or frustrated during a learning experience.
Developing this skill will enable you to practice the principle of positive mental conditioning. This can help you to continually increase your learning curve making it easier to consistently apply new skills you develop.
You can simply ask yourself questions that your mind will automatically answer. Questions like, "Why was I able to learn that so easily" and "What was it about that experience, that made me feel so good"
These types of questions will cause your mind to search for positive associations with that experience. Over time, you will easily be able to recall the experience in vivid detail, and likely create new experiences just like it.
By following these principles during your educational endeavors, you will be able to easily learn any subject you choose, and possibly become one of the best in your field.
About the Author
Anders Gustavsson President Infinite Synergy Learning SystemsThe Infinite Synergy team developed MLM The Game, and has been involved helping home-business entrepreneurs build strong relationships and succeed faster through playing this game since 2003. Please visit this network marketing training website at www.mlmthegame.com for details.
