We all know that nothing good comes without hard work and persistence; yet we often miss the importance of how crucial a good support system is to not just our acheivement or success, but also to our happiness.
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There are many benefits of a good support system such as:
- Accountability
- External motivation
- Encouragement
- Positive Reinforcement
- Outside perspective and counseling
- Constructive criticism and emotionally unbias feedback
- Energy ; specifically feeding off one another’s passion
Accountability
Not only will a good support system; whether is by 1 person or 10, help you to focus, but they will also hold you accountable. If you’ve committed to consistently showing up to a place everyday and they don’t see you, you will likely be getting a phone call or text to find out what’s going on. Being held accountable by people often gives us the push or immediate motivation to carry out our game plan when we really don’t feel like doing anything at all!
External Motivation
While all who are truly successful are self motivated individuals, external motivation, I believe, is just as important! This could look like texts or emails every week to start your week with a positive or encouraging word. The best part about external motivation is that you can use it to fuel yourself later on as an affirmation. For example: If someone texts you and says “You`ll do great!” , right before your performance, or even during the preparation phase you can draw on those words as a source of affirmation to yourself that “Hey! They think I`m great and I am”.
Encouragement
Let’s face it, we all face our own obstacles and struggles and sometimes we even fail. It is so extremely critical during those times to have encouragement from a positive source! When I speak of a positive source, I am speaking of someone who will not just side with your emotions and down play truth, but someone who will genuinely have compassion for you and want the best in your success; therefore they will build you up with strategy and truth. A good encourager will always have your best interest in mind, and you will find comfort and accountability in that alone.
Positive Reinforcement
This is a trait that comes naturally in any good support system. Positive reinforcement is encouargement, accountability, and motivation given to help positively reinforce the end goal. Often times, we lose sight of the end result because we are so focused or stressed out by the process. While other times we are so focused on the end result that we fail to see the importance of the process and game plan we must follow in order to succeed.
Outside Perspective & Counseling
For anyone who wants to take their life to the next level of success, an outside perspective and counsel are underrated. While it is helpful to have friends and family to love and support us no matter what, it is also important to have a coach or mentor to give us criticism and an emotionally unbias perspective of our growth. Think about your manager at your job. That person is supposed to help develop and coach you do succeed within the company and perform at optimal efficiency to meet the needs of the position you contracted for.
In goal chasing, it is much the same. I encourage each and every person to seek a coach and counsel with someone who is better then you are, and has acheived things that you want to achieve. Not only have they gone through the process and excelled, but they have learned what works, doesn’t work, and have been through the same emotional process you are going through. This allows the coach to not only provide a straight shot look at your process, but also compassion.
Constructive Criticism:
This is mainly the role of the coach. While we hate to admit it, we all get emotional and defensive when those who we love intimitately or are close to us try to give us criticism; often because too much emotion is triggered. Constructive criticism is just another benefit that will help guide us on the right path, and force us to look in the mirror when we don’t want to. I`m not saying that friends or family can’t provide this to you, but more often then not we look at ourselves in the mirror less when confronted by someone too close to us. For whatever reason, someone on the outside who is developing us as players in our lives, will usually cause us to question ourselves first.
ENERGY!!!
There is so much to be said about ENERGY. Every single thing that we do and are composed of is ENERGY! ENERGY IS EVERYTHING!
When wake up and feel great and set our minds to be great, we usually are! Contrary, when we become negative we manifest negative things and people around us. The great part about surrounding ourselves with people with high and positive energy is that they will not allow negativity around them for too long! So, if we’re out of place, they will tell us!! This benefits us greatly.
While it’s completely unavoidable to experience low energy or negativity; especially during fatigue or exhaustion, it is imporant to be able to turn that energy around. There is no better way to do that then surrounding yourself with positive ENERGY flowing people! Ever walked in to a room or a club that was just dull and your whole night was a bust? That’s energy. On the other hand, have you ever been feeling somewhat down then walked in to a room of people that the ENERGY was fun and high, and you ended up having a great time?! ENERGY!