Why it is important to stick with goal-oriented people

Foreword: Before you invest your time to read this article (thanks in advance) I want to clarify that this is not an article related to those "x daily habits successful people have". Moreover, this article is related to thoughts and facts on why it can have a positive impact on you to work/spend time with goal-oriented people.

Why I come up with such a topic

Not so long ago I've read an article about people who radically cleaned their surroundings of pessimistic people. The reason for this action was their attitude, namely that you are only as successful or positive minded as the people you have to deal with every day. This post has raised my interest and so I've started to think a bit about this topic for myself.

"You are only as successful as those you frequently associate with."

So successful people are always on the hunt for individuals who are goal-oriented, enthusiastic, optimistic and who have an overall positive mental outlook. So that means that some people made a habit out of associating with other success-minded individuals. And on the flip side, they also make a point to limit their exposure to negative and toxic people. So for successful people, it's important to kinda replace negative friends and search out for positive individuals because they are very positive on their own and they want to get the same thing back for themselves.

So we emulate the people we associate with?

They say that you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. But is this true? When it comes down to relationships, we are highly influenced by those closest to us. This affects our way of thinking, our self-esteem, and our general decisions. And you know what? I can relate to this statement. Surely we are our own person in many ways, but we're more affected by our environment than we think. A great example for me is that you often use the same phrases or noticeable words like your close friends. Even your behavior in your daily routine may be affected by this.

I cannot yet gain any real benefit from this

Well if you still have no clue why this might be important for you don't worry. Goal-oriented people have certain approaches to different tasks from which you can benefit greatly. Of course, it is often a subjective opinion on which person you consider to be goal-oriented. But if you think about it and take a goal-oriented person from your circle I'm sure you'll agree with some of the points I'm about to share.

1. They fix things that waste time

When you think of computer science, you will notice that people who are effective in their work never do the same task manually over and over. These people will always have a kind of automation for such constant and recurring tasks.

2. They often start a task without fear that they might have to start all over again

Like, seriously...How often have you doubted whether your solution would even get you to your goal? These kinds of thoughts often keep us from even starting with the implementation. To solve a problem step by step it often helped me to look at the working methods or solution approaches of people who work goal-driven.

3. They pay attention to details

This may sound simple for you by now but think for example about the network architecture of a larger project. Take the Gliffy diagrams of your network architecture and while you are working on a customer ticket try to think of everything that might be broken by your change or what you might need to change in the current architecture to get to the final result. Now and then you will get to the point where you don't know what to do and then ask a more experienced colleague on this topic for help. Often these people can help you out with your problems. And they can do this because they have more experience but also possibly look at the problem from a completely different angle. The more time you spend with these people the more you understand their approaches and thought processes.

4. They always look around for a solution

Imagine a meeting with a retrospective of the last week as the topic. Sometimes (myself included) you often fall into an emotionally driven discussion without any real solution attempt. If you have ever been in a situation like this you will have noticed that there are always 1-2 people who skip this point and come right around the corner with a quick solution.

5. They give importance to feedback

This is one of the most important points for me personally because I have been able to learn a lot from this quality. These people maintain an active feedback culture in a several ways. It can be a comment on your recently opened pull request or some feedback during a meeting. Whatever form this constructive criticism may have, it will always help to improve yourself.

Alright I think I've got your point

That's nice. Even if these are not fixed standards in any way it can help you to pay attention to what goal-oriented people do differently from yourself. And yes I advise you to do this even if you already think that you work goal-oriented because goal-oriented people never stop learning and are always open to new things!