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by Leo Babauta
“Only one who
devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a
true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.”
- Albert Einstein
Very often you’ll see blog posts or
books teaching you to “master” a skill in only 10 days, or 3 days
… in fact, it used to be 30 days but the time frame to master
something seems to be shrinking rapidly.
I’ve even seen tutorials claiming to
teach a skill in just a few hours. Pretty soon we’ll be demanding
to know how to do something in seconds.
Instant mastery of skills and
knowledge! Hey presto!
Unfortunately, the reality is something
a little less magical. Or maybe that’s a fortunate thing.
There’s only one way to become good
at something:
-
First, you must learn it by
reading or listening to others who know how to do it, but most
especially by doing.
-
Then do some more. At this point,
you’ll start to understand it, but you’ll suck. This stage could
take months.
-
Do some more. After a couple of
years, you’ll get good at it.
-
Do some more. If you learn from
mistakes, and aren’t afraid to make mistakes in the first place,
you’ll go from good to great.
It takes anywhere from 6-10 years to
get great at something, depending on how often and how much you do
it.
Some
estimate that it takes 10,000 hours to master something, but I
think it varies from person to person and depends on the skill and
other factors.
Want to be a great writer? It’s possible to
be great within a few years, if you have the God-given talent of
Fitzgerald or Shakespeare, but most of us toil for over a decade and
are still trying to get better.
We’re still learning, to this day,
and if we look back on our first few years of writing — of any kind
— we’ll tell you we sucked (for the most part) back then.
Want to be a great blogger? Same deal.
I’ve been doing it for almost three years, and I’m still only
competent. Gruber’s been doing it for, like, 7 years and he’s
still only … well, he’s pretty great by now.
You have to do it, make mistakes,
learn, really begin to understand it, and someday, if you stick with
it, you’ll be great.
There’s no one who is great at his
profession who hasn’t been doing it for at least 6 years — no
designer, no programmer, no carpenter, no architect, no surgeon, no
teacher, no musician, no artist … you get the point.
I dare you to name one.
Most have been doing it for over a
decade, and are still looking to improve.
It takes desire, it takes drive, it
takes lots and lots of doing.
So here’s the thing: don’t get
discouraged if you’re just starting out. Have fun, like we all did
in the beginning.
If you have fun, you’ll learn to love
it, and THAT’S when it clicks. When you love something, you’ll
want to do it all the time, sometimes late at night and and early in
the morning.
THAT’S how you get great.
“Everybody has
talent, it’s just a matter of moving around until you’ve
discovered what it is.”
- George Lucas
Find that desire.
Do it, don’t just read about it.
Don’t buy a single product or book or
magazine that claims to teach you something in minutes, hours, days.
They’re lying to your face, with a hand in your pocket at the same
time.
Do it, keep doing it, then keep doing
it some more. It’s the only way to get great, but the good news:
anyone can do it. It just takes some time and some doing. Hey presto.
When the world
says, “Give up,”
Hope whispers, “Try it one more
time.”
~Author Unknown
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Leo
Babauta is the creator and writer of the Zen Habits blog
which is about finding simplicity in the daily chaos of our lives.
It’s about clearing the clutter so we can focus on what’s
important, create something amazing, find happiness.
Leo is the author of a new best-selling
book, The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the
Essential, in Business and in Life.
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