Why you should build your skill level up
Its about building practices, practices that build skills and skills that change lives for ever and ever! Developing ourselves enriches our personal and professional lives and helps us grow into the best that we can be.
1. Learn a new skill every year.
I've been doing this for years. I learn a lot of things that don't seem to be "skills" but they are: - how to write- how to draw- how to tell stories- how to play chess (and now Go and poker)- how to play music (guitar, piano, violin)- some programming languages- some basic design skills (like using photoshop or illustrator)- even just learning about investing and personal finance.2. Skill building is like building a muscle
Every time you use a skill it gets stronger. Like lifting weights at the gym makes your muscles get bigger and stronger. The more you do something, the better you get at it.3. Use your skills!
When I was starting out as a writer I would practice writing every day. I didn't really know what my "skill" was yet so I just tried everything from short stories to novels to humor writing and even screenplays for movies that were coming out that year.4. Use them in public!
I used to do standup comedy all the time when i first started getting good at it. People would pay me money just to come up on stage and talk for ten minutes about anything i wanted. Then people would laugh and clap afterwards so I knew I did well if they did both of those things after each joke.5. Don't be afraid of failure!
I've lost many games of chess in my life but each loss has helped me get better because each loss teaches me something new about why I lost or what went wrong or what mistakes i made and then I can apply that knowledge the next time i play again with different strategies based on what happened during the game so as not to make those same mistakes again. This is called "post-mortems".6. There are two ways you can fail at almost anything: 1) by not trying or 2) by trying but not learning from your failures so you can try again next time with success instead of failure
Failing is ok, its part of learning but don't let failure stop you from trying again and again until you succeed7. Learning is fun
And rewarding
And enriching
But
it's hard work too
It takes persistence, discipline, creativity, curiosity, passion (about learning), grit, focus, etc etc etc plus there are no guarantees that any particular skill will ever be mastered (or even good enough) so there's always more work needed on top of whatever level you have reached already in any one skill area
So
enjoy the process AND enjoy the rewards along the way AND keep in mind it's a lifelong journey never ending but always rewarding along the way AND
enjoy it anyway because this is fun stuff we're talking about here
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