Do you want to become a master in your field? Today I will be giving advice that I hope will give you insight, knowledge and confidence that will help you hone the skill you want to master. These approaches apply to all practices as I have found the same mindset functions roughly the same when working towards mastering a skill.
There is always a starting point, basic learning curve, breakthrough and then mastery. Understanding what it takes to become better at your skill will inevitably speed up and make easier the process of mastery. So, with that said, I hope you enjoy this post.
Firstly, you of course need to pick something you want to master. Trying to hone more than one skill can be difficult to do and you'd be spreading yourself thin. You know what they say, jack of all trades, master of none. It's important to choose something you're passionate about and will be happy spending hours doing. If you didn't know, depending on what skill you choose to practice, most of the time there are related external skills that get picked up along with the main skill you want to master in your field. For example, if you're practising to become a lawyer, you get good at law, public speaking, psychology and creative problem-solving. Law being what you're practising to master and the other 3 skills are related external skills.
Second, once you know what you're passionate about and choose to master, you need to research, learn and absorb as much information as possible on the subject. It's good to practice and it's equally important to understand as many aspects of the skill you are practising to master. There are two ways to learn more about the subject you're practising.
Both these methods are very effective and can help boost the speed at which you learn and understand. Learning these ways will give you an advantage when practising and make it natural for you to create your own unique ways of understanding the subject.
Personally, when it comes to my skill, music production, I am completely self-taught through the internet. Youtube and Google made it easy for me to search subjects on music production when I was not clued up on certain things or curious to understand more about what I already knew. So, with that in mind, you'll need to find every applicable resource on the subject and learn from it as much as you can. The internet has a wealth of information so you won't have a hard time finding what you're looking for to teach yourself.
Having a mentor teach you can give personal guidance and will provide excellent assistance in learning more about what you're practising. It's also very important to find the right mentor as having a mentor teach you requires communication on both ends.
Third, you've to choose the amount of time you want to spend a day practising what you want to master. The 10,000 hours rule is very relevant in this case as after spending 10,000 hours practising, which takes years, it's safe to say that you've become a master. Every set of 10,000 hours after that is achievement of new levels of mastery. This doesn't mean that you can't get very good at your skill in a short amount of time, especially if you have a calling for it and natural talent, but it's a fact that you do get better with every hour of practice. Like the old saying, Practice makes perfect, which is true for every walk of life.
When you practice getting good at a skill, you should remember to not get frustrated at yourself when you feel things aren't moving forward when in fact they are. Another good saying, Rome wasn't built in a day. People that you might look up to in your field didn't magically appear at the top as a master. They also started from the beginning and spent years going through their own form of practice and obstacles to get where they are today. So don't be hard on yourself and most importantly, enjoy the process.
When starting to learn a new skill, one can often feel quite clueless. This is completely fine as you're at the starting point of gaining an understanding of the necessities and requirements for what it is you want to learn. This is a very exciting part of the journey as everything is new and the brain is stimulated with creating fresh pathways of familiarity. This is why it's important to choose something that you're passionate about because if you do something that you're influenced to do either by family or friends, you'll quickly get bored and lose interest unless you've a true passion for it. This is not to say that learning a new skill because of your friends and family is a bad thing, oftentimes it's cathartic and good for mental health to participate in something that involves teamwork and helps you learn something new with people close to you. What I am saying is, don't do something that you aren't comfortable with and can't see yourself doing in 10 years. This is also why it's very exciting starting something new because you get to try it out and see whether you like it or not. The best way to start learning something new is to just do it! If you get it wrong enough times, eventually you'll get it right once, then, get it wrong a bunch more times then get it right again and understand how to do it wrong less. There's no such thing as failing, only the opportunity to do it again. The only time you fail is if you give up.
Once you've gotten used to the basics of what it is you're trying to learn more about, you'll notice that you're going to start learning exponentially faster as your understanding grows with every day of practice. You'll start understanding more about what it is you need to know which in turn makes it easier to learn. That is what you would call a positive feedback loop. It can take months and even years to truly understand the basics of what it is you are learning, depending on what skill of course. Once you've gone through the basic learning curve, you get to the next part of your journey in becoming a master in your field.
When you've spent a few years learning the basics of a new skill there is a point called a breakthrough. This is when you've gained a lot of knowledge and understanding of the skill you're practising to master. You'd be shocked at the number of people that are at the brink of a breakthrough then end up just giving up because they feel they aren't learning more or are at the level they want to be. This only happens for two reasons, lack of passion or they simply grow bored. This is again, why it's important to choose something that you're passionate about. When you get to a breakthrough, it doesn't mean you instantly become better at something but it does mean you become more intuitive and knowledgeable about what it is you're getting good at. This is that positive feedback loop in play again. Because you're as good as you've become, learning is now easier and comes naturally which then builds on your skill which will inevitably make it easier again. This will eventually bring you to the final part of your journey.
Just to be clear, this is not actually the final part of your journey, as one can never stop learning, but the part at which you'll see yourself at a point where your skill has surpassed many other people or matches the same level of others in your field. Mastery of skill comes with a lot of work, patience, persistence and determination. It's years of trial and error. Oftentimes you'll find your own unique way of doing what it is you've mastered. This is, again, why passion is so important because if you get so good at something to the point where no one else can do it like you do, it puts you in your own, new and whole entire different class of mastery. This is when you can practice or perform the skill without even thinking about it, even do it with your eyes closed. This is also the point where you become an example and inspiration to other people starting out.
In conclusion, find a skill you're passionate about, know what it is you want to achieve with the skill you want to master and never give up.
