As we enter a new field that we know nothing about, we want to become masters of it as quickly as possible. Eager to become professional, we try to take shortcuts in the learning process.
Don’t.
Don’t ignore the fundamentals. Don’t skip the basic lessons. Don’t disregard the essentials.
Learning new skills have to take time. Let them. There’s no rush.
To really become master you have to practice. The 10,000-hour rule as coined by Anders Ericsson and made popular by Malcolm Gladwell states that to truly become master you have to put in 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. That’s 90 minutes every day for 20 years.
But what about all these overnight successes? It turns out that most of them aren’t really overnight successes. Most of them are years of deliberate practice and then all of a sudden they get noticed and in today’s world, things tend to escalate pretty fast, to go viral. But to maintain that attention and grow it even further, there are has to be something to fall back on. There has to be some true skill and a yearning to learn more. If there isn’t, you’ll be found out pretty soon and your success will dwindle at ultra speed.
True success also involves a great deal of humility. You have to stay humble to the fact that no matter how much you learn there are always going to be things that you don’t know anything about. Be curious. Ask those who have that knowledge.
Always try to add to your knowledge of the world. Always be honest about what you know, don’t try to impress others by saying things that are probably not correct. Always be curious and keep an open mind.
Never stop learning. Never stop growing.
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash
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