Leverage Social Media To Reach Goals Faster

What I have learned about getting older, is that we go through different phases in life.

As much as I loved the phase I was driving a Harley Davidson, catching up every weekend with friends in our own bar, and playing rugby, I’m also relieved that chapter is over.

It’s only comfortable to say that 5 years later. At the time it was hard to give up that fun life.

I’m relieved because:

• I was not doing anything about self-improvement.
• It was pretty unhealthy to have your own bar in the backyard.
• I did not own anything that would increase in worth (like a property).
• I had no long-term goals (just the one that society automatically assigns to you: work till 65 & retire)

In 2019 I moved out of that environment to break that routine and I now:

• Work on improving myself every single day.
• I’m fitter, healthier and more in shape than ever before.
• I own a big house with its own income stream, pool + a profitable business.
• I have a big list of meaningful goals that I plan to achieve (not society’s standard goals).

In conclusion, my daily ways of living have changed. I’m in a completely different phase.

With a different phase comes different information I need/want to consume that fits my goals.

Looking at Harley Davidson pictures on Facebook does not help grow my business. Watching rugby videos on Instagram does not help make me a better entrepreneur.

This sounds obvious, but many people do this though. They try to hang on tight to old phases in life. Looking from the outside in, it almost looks desperate. This heavily limits growth potential.

The information you consume on a daily basis, hugely influences what you think about throughout the day. So I want to make sure I consume tips, tricks, insights and systems that help me reach my goals faster and more guaranteed.

That’s why I started posting online on my personal website. To build my public journal & personal portfolio.

In this article, I break down my thought pattern behind building a personal portfolio online. And why I encourage you to start a public journal & personal portfolio too.

Problem

If you started your social media when you were young and never took the time to completely overhaul your social media, your newsfeed probably looks something like this:

• Memes because they’re funny.
• Epic fails because they’re funny.
• Funny dog videos your old high school classmate shared.
• Holiday pictures from your mate’s ex that you have not unfollowed yet.

It’s all fun and you get your little dopamine hits from it.

The problem is, it dilutes your brain and it is a massive time waster.

That doesn’t really matter if you’re a kid. But if you’re older and you have monthly bills to pay and a family to feed, it becomes a concern.

I don’t have a family to feed yet but it was diluting my brain and it was consuming time.

Something needed to change because I was getting annoyed.

Design

By reading that previous chapter you might think, “Why don’t you just delete social media if you were annoyed?”

Living on the other side of the world far away from your family and friends is not easy. Social media is still a great way to see what’s happening in The Netherlands, interact via chat functions and keep up to date with birthdays.

It gives you that little bit of connection in times you are thinking about home.

For that reason, deleting social media completely wouldn’t work for me, the next option could be to ruthlessly start to delete (old) friends that were diluting my news feed with information that would not suit my new phase of life.

That would mean that I would need to scroll through the friends lists across multiple platforms and judge with every person if they were cluttering my news feed → unfollow, or they were allowed to stay.

Very time-consuming and not very nice.

I decided to create a new account. Which is Dan Engineers across multiple platforms.

The old account I started in my youth would stay so I can check in a couple of times a week how things are going back home and watch some rugby videos.

The new account is for my daily educational content consumption.

See it as the 80/20 rule. 80% of the new account with only information that suits my current phase in life. And 20% on checking in on my old accounts for connecting with old friends and entertainment.

Build

In September 2022 I started posting. It has been one of the better decisions I made in my life. That sounds like a big call, but I got the following reasons for it:

1. Consuming content wisely: You think about the stuff that you feed your brain on a daily basis. Do you feed your brain with negative news that is old a day later? You think about the negative news. Do you feed your brain with tips, tricks, insights and systems that help you reach your goals faster and more guaranteed? You think about ways to reach your goals. So I feed my brain only with engineering, creativity, entrepreneurship, self-improvement and life design content. Because that suits my goal.
   
2. Find mentors: I now have multiple (online) mentors. Without them even knowing me. Your goals are most likely not unique. Follow people that already reached your goals and share how they got there. It’s literally a life hack. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Just follow the steps they took.
   
3. From only consumer to creator: Like probably 95% of the people on social media, I would only consume content. I rarely posted. Then I started to notice the upsides of being a creator. They share what they learn on a daily basis, but in their own words. Which is a great way to remember what you learn for the long term. It is even a win-win if you teach the next person something new that helps them on their journey. Which is super cool.
   
4. Find like-minded people: I started my entrepreneurial journey in January 2022. But I did not have many entrepreneurial friends that are on a similar path as me. So by sharing my interests and journey publicly, I put myself in a position to find people outside of my current friend group that have the same interests. People can come across my content and think: “Hey, that resonates with me, I will connect with Dan.” I’ve already made great connections this way.
   
5. Public journal & personal portfolio: The classic 1 page CV that lists the courses you did 15 years ago (and already forgot the information about) might be somewhat interesting to a business that is after your services, but you are pretty much no different from others. However, how impressive would it be for a business, if they see a well-designed personal portfolio website that displays self-written articles, the impactful people you worked with, all the great projects you worked on with visuals and an explanation of the building process? That shows A LOT of credibility which makes them want you more, which gives you leverage, which results in negotiating a higher paycheck.
   
6. Skill creation: To build a personal well-designed portfolio, or in other words, a personal brand, you need to learn more skills:
   - Design: For your social media posts and website.
   - Website building: To build your personal website.
   - Copywriting: To write in an understandable way.
   - Photo & video editing: So your portfolio looks professional.
   - Networking: To connect with people that resonate with your content.
   And more.

What I have done is converting social media from being a time waster and bad mood influencer to a personal development and networking machine.

It’s super fun and rewarding. So I highly encourage other people to do the same.

How cool is it to look back in a couple of years and see what you were working on and what you were thinking about in the journey of reaching your goals.

There is not much to lose.

People don’t like the content I talk about? No problem, unfollow Dan Engineers and follow my old account where I don’t post anything. No hard feelings.

Conclusion

We go through different phases in life. Old ways of doing things can negatively impact progress in the new phase. It’s important to be aware of this and accept change is the solution. People don’t like change but is a requirement if you want to change.

If you want to be different, you have to do things differently.” - Jim Rohn

I’m now using social media to learn new things and meet people who share the same interests. But also build at the same time a public journal in case people want to learn from my experience and build a personal portfolio that can help with future professional opportunities.

Now go build your own personal portfolio and share your work. I’d love to see more projects being built and goals being achieved!