The Most Overlooked Resources You Have in Life
What are some of the most overlooked resources in your life? Achievements can be measured by many different standards. In life, and in your career, there are always set metrics for demonstrating success. How do you measure success for yourself? Thinking about what you value, your goals, and vision for your life (not anyone else’s), what are the ways you see yourself growing and aspiring to be who you want to be?
Everyone has their own skills and a multitude of resources available to them. For free! The trick is knowing where to look. Become an objective observer of your life. Look at everything you have available to you from an outsider’s perspective. What assets and influence do you have within your life would that an outsider would see as useful?
Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a skill as a learned power of doing something competently: a developed aptitude or ability. Whereas resources can simply be defined as a source of information or expertise.
Think of your aptitudes and your network and how could you utilise those resources to make positive changes and connections. Here are some of the overlooked resources we thought of to get you started.
Your Most Overlooked Resources:
A loyal friend
A loyal friend is worth 100 acquaintances. This is someone who sees your potential and attributes and genuinely wants to help you be successful in life. In business, this can be worth so much more. Potentially, this could be a friend who believes in you, in your brand, in your product, and may be willing to put some of themselves on the line to help you get started. Take for instance Bill Gates and Paul Allen; co-founders of Microsoft. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were co-founders of Apple. Two of the largest multinational technology corporations this world has known! Who knows what potential lies behind a good friendship? Don’t overlook this resource!
Your brain
Yes, I said it, your brain. What we mean is, you don’t need to be the smartest, quickest, or the best to be in the game. It is your most overlooked resource. Learn to grow and up-skill yourself. A big way to do this is to invest in yourself and expand your education. The best part is that we live in the age of the internet. You don’t need to enroll in brick and mortar colleges to earn a certificate or a degree. There are plenty of low-cost and free courses online. Check out your local library to see if they have an online version of their books. Some libraries use apps like Overdrive and Libby to provide audio and ebook versions of your favourite books. Once you’ve found some, listen to audiobooks in the car or on public transit on the way to and from work, or while running errands. We often use this time to listen to music while driving or mindlessly scroll social media while on public transit. Why waste this time when you could be learning and developing your skills in this time?
Your privilege
Yup, I’m going here too. A good number of people reading this article right now do so because of privilege. Because you or your parents can afford for you to access the internet. If you are from a country where its’ currency is valued higher than developing countries, use that to your advantage. Search on websites such as Upwork or Fiverr for affordable labour from someone in a developing country. There are many very talented individuals on these websites who will provide equal to or greater the quality of the more expensive individuals living in “first-world” countries. As the CEO of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, pointed out; when you hire only from the city you are in, you are limited to the talent of those willing to live in that city, thereby discounting the majority of the talent throughout the world.
Your community
Every one of us lives somewhere with other people around. And those people know other people and so on and so forth. It’s usually common to find someone with a need that you can help fulfill, and vice versa. Network within your community and find other resources you didn’t know existed. For example, I have a big house and I work two full time jobs. We needed a cleaning person to come once a week to help us keep things tidy. After searching online the best price I could find was $50/hr for someone to come in. I found this price to be way outside of what I could reasonably afford and put the idea on the back burner. Recently, I went to a friend’s birthday party and got talking with a lady there. I mentioned this problem and she immediately gave me the solution! She had been using a lady to help her clean for only $20/hr AND she was taking new clients on the same day I had available! Problem solved!
Jim Rohn said, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” Feel like you’re not getting anywhere in life? Try networking with people whose success you admire. Find a local business mentoring group and go make a friend!
Your drive
If you want something bad enough, you’ll do what it takes to get it. Otherwise you didn’t really want it. This applies to most things in life that take hard work and effort. You’ll read hundreds of “rags to riches” stories about people “pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps”. These stories are out there because they are true and they show that hard work looks different in each of the stories. A person isn’t not working hard even if they don’t get their hands physically dirty.
For more help and information on keeping motivated by creating routines, check out our article Creating a Wellness Routine.
To Sum Up:
Usually we think of things like expensive degrees, large investments, relocation, or career changes as the vehicle for getting to where we want to be. The “stuff of success” right? Some don’t realize the vast amount of inexpensive and valuable resources they are overlooking. Taking advantage of these suggestions may truly make a difference. I hope you were able to learn a few ideas for some of the most valuable and often overlooked resources at your disposal. Robert Louis Stevenson said, “Do not measure success by today’s harvest, measure success by the seeds you plant today.”
Which seeds will you be planting today?
