How to become astonishingly great at something
“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
We have exceptional capacity to get amazingly good at anything we want; even if we are now a genius at that thing. It is possible to become super writer for example, even if you don’t have the genius of Shakespeare. Even though there are tons of blogs out there that gives tips on how to do this and make it look like a magic pill, the reality is a lot less of that, and a lot more like this: dedication, hard work, and lots of time.
So, basically, there is one way of becoming excellent at something, and here it is:
1. To start, you must get to learning. Go crazy with reading about it, listen to others who know how to do it, and start doing it yourself, no matter how bad you are at it.
2. Do some more. Once you keep doing it, you will start to understand it, even though you’re still bad at it.
3. Keep doing it. Be sure that you will make lots of mistakes, learn from them.
4. And of course, don’t give up. If you learn from your mistakes, and you’re persistent, you will go from good to great.
It usually takes about 5 to 10 years to get absolutely great at something. Some estimate that it takes around 10,000 hours to master something. But of course, this whole estimation varies from person to person and depends on many different factors. You can search the entire universe, and you won’t find anyone who is great at his or her profession, who hasn’t been doing it for at least 5 years. Most great musicians, programmers, architects, surgeons etc. Have been doing it for over a decade.
Want to be a great whatever? Same deal: keep doing it, put in the dedication, make mistakes, learn from them, and do it over and over again.
And here’s the trick: don’t get discouraged if you’re new at something. Have fun with it, and once you have fun, you’ll love it, and THAT’S when it starts working. When you love something, you’ll want to do it all the time, and the more time you put aside to do it, the closer you’ll get to excelling at it.
And here it is: Want to become great at something? Do it, keep doing it, and then keep doing it some more. This is the one and only way to get great, and the good news is: anyone can do it.
When the world says, “Give up,”
Hope whispers, “Try it one more time.”
~Unknown