When you live like a true itchy feet - YOU WANT IT ALL!
Something like that Queen song, but much more proactive! You want the crafts and skills you never knew before and you're entirely ready to master them all!
In a life of each itchy feet boredom is an never-ending immanent treat. Something like our archenemy, hidden within our own lines constantly sabotaging our system from the inside. So, THE REAL ITCHY FEET must fight it every day in a various fields gaining many different skills.
Photo by Alejandro Alvarez on Unsplash
That's way for each of us life is a GRANDIOSE ROLLER COASTER with FIREWORKS on the sky in front and monocycle riding CLOWNS joggling chocolate sprinkle sticks below us. :D
The point is that if you accept boredom as your immanent condition and let it motivate you to go distances, learn and [most importantly] master new skills - only then you'll have permission from the Universe to call yourself THE ITCHY FEET.
And NO, it's not that hard. And YES, we are many. Ask @itchyfeetdonica if you don't believe me.
So, to help you all unrevealed itchyfeets it the world, I created this MASTERING ANY SKILL YOU LIKE MANUAL. It contains step by step process explained with all required skills and habits that you'll need to cherish in order to gain new skill and improve yourself in many ways. Follow through...
You'll Need Guidance
Most of the skills you find interesting you will be able to learn by yourself but to MASTER one skill, I strongly recommend you to find the mentor.
All the books, e-books and audio/video tutorials can help you gain basic knowledge but for profound understanding and practicing of any skill/craft, you must learn secrets from the true masters.
There are two main reasons why learning on your own isn’t enough (avoiding arguments concerning morality):
Most of the masters of some skill/craft don't share their full knowledge because they don't want to lose their leverage.
Most of them share part of their knowledge and it's usually the one that's outdated or exceeded by some efficient one.
Ergo, if you want to TRULY MASTER one skill you need to be present while it's being done by professional, because then core secretes of some skill couldn't be hidden from you. Plus, while you help them do it, you get to practice and repeat the same skill over and over again. Basically, you learn by observing and repeating!
REPETITIO MATER STUDIORUM EST! - as my granny and the Latins would say. :D
PROLOGE
Step 1 - Find the skill you want to master and read, listen or watch everything that you can find about it in order to gain basic knowledge.
Step 2- Find one mentor or place where the skill is being practiced often and with true quality. Offer your services, even for free (if necessary), because volunteering is a small price that you can pay for gaining long-run leverage by acquiring new skill.
THREE STAGES OF MASTERING ANY SKILL
Once you found your mentor or appropriate place, there are 3 phases of learning process that you must complete.
STAGE 1 - Learn and Endure
(required skills - focus, calmness, resilience, observing, patience, diligence...)
Photo by Jonathan Daniels on Unsplash
At this stage, you are a rookie/trainee, and to most of the people, you are schoolboy who doesn't know shit about anything. Everybody will think of you like this but their approach to you will be different.
There will be people who will use every moment to teach you something (from different, obvious or vague, reasons) and there will be people who will bully you around (again from different reasons - fear and other uncertainness of their own).
YOU MUST LEARN FROM BOTH OF THEM! It's that simple.
Remember - Anyone can teach you something if you know how to listen.
Forget your ego, find your focus and be polite to all of them. You don’t want to be stuck in a stupid argument just to prove the bullies wrong. Believe me, they know it too. Argument with them and then watch them cave in themselves leaving the secrets of craft/skill out of you.
I know that it’s difficult to swallow your pride in most of the situation, but KEEP YOURSELF FOCUSED ON YOUR GOAL!
Concentrate, find your balance and let soft power do it's magic. Eventually, their uncertainty will reveal to you and finally they will stop bothering you when you let them know that there is nothing they need to fear from you. You even might end up with some unexpected friendships!
Anyway, this is the LIFE LESSON, not just tip for mastering skills - RUN YOUR OWN RACE!
Don't look what others do, don't measure your sex organs with others (pardon me). Find your goal and walk your path! Don’t let ignorance distract you!
Be PATIENT and DILIGENT. Always volunteer for tasks that need to be done. The more tasks you do, the quicker you'll learn and the deeper your knowledge of that skill will be....
[One more important tip] Don't be a smart ass!
If you don't know how to do something and you haven't seen it before, ask someone who knows... BUT ... reduce questions to a minimum. If you constantly ask questions you'll annoy even those who want to teach you something. So, OBSERVE as much as you can and LEARN that way.
Finally, WORK, WORK, WORK... Practice whenever you have time!
STAGE 2 - Master the Rules
(required skills - focus, memorization, diligence, devotion)
Photo by Judeus Samson on Unsplash
Repeat the tasks all over again until you remember all the necessary rules of the skill/craft/job. Even though you'll start feeling confident in practicing it, always try to perfect your skills until the rules become intrinsic to you.
This stage is a bit boring but it's the milestone. At this point people usually give up, but not THE MASTER ITCHY FEET. The Master Itchy Feet knows that fun part is waiting behind this hill!
KEEP GOING!
STAGE 3 - Break the Rules
(required skills - imagination, improvisation, awesomeness)
Photo by Valentin Petkov on Unsplash
At this stage you already know everything you could possibly learn from your colleagues and mentors. Rules have become part of you so much that you don't have to think about them anymore. You do it perfectly by heart because they are located in your subconscience.
Now it's TIME TO BREAK THEM! Time to give your personal touch to the game. To break and re-create rule constructions the way you want!
It's time to improvisation and imagination and there's no limit to that!
That is the time when you add to your roller coaster, fireworks and monocycle riding clowns with chocolate sprinkle sticks THE CHEERING CROWD with COLORFUL CONFETTI and GRAND BRASS BAND in the back!
And no, you're not finished yet....