Stop me if this sounds familiar:
You're interested in a certain career or hobby. You're excited as hell! So you hop on Amazon and you buy every Kindle book under $3.00 to learn how to do said career or hobby.
You hop on you Youtube and watch videos on how to achieve said career or hobby. And you watch and read, and read and watch, till you lose interest and move on to the next shiny bobble that catches your attention and repeat the cycle.
THIS WAS ME!
For years I would do this to myself. It got to the point that it became a running joke between my friends.
"How soon will it take for Helayna to drop this one?"
And the worst part about it is, they weren't wrong!
See, under the guise of "being prepared" I never actually pursued my goals. At least not until I quit "learning" and started "doing!"
It wasn't till I decided to physically DO SOMETHING along with research, that I became the naughty techie that I am today! I had to put down the the books (well, more like iPad with Kindle app) and actually:
- Download the Linux OS I needed!
- Install the necessary programs required!
- And most importantly, practice my ass off!
I had to DO SOMETHING!
When you're an infant, you don't read books on how to walk, you just fumble your way about, fall on your ass many times, and eventually you are walking!
Most of this stems from 2 things. Fear and Laziness
FEAR
For those of us who went to college, we all remember "the fear."
GRADUATION!
Leaving the safe haven of campus life. Having to go out in the cruel real world of responsibilities and bills.
In fact, there are some people I like to call "professional students." These are people are people who do things like get multiple Master degrees or Doctorates. People who stay in school most of their adult life, never putting into practice what they spent all the years in school learning!
This fear isn't really a fear of responsibilities or "real life," it's a fear of failing!
We don't want to fail, so we feel by "learning" as much as we can, when we FINALLY start "doing," we will have nothing but success!
The problem with this thinking is that, you CANNOT SUCCEED without failing first. Most new things you try you are going to suck at!
But ironically, that's where you really learn! By application, not just studying.
On the other end of this is...
LAZINESS
There isn't much a philosophical point here! You have to be motivated to succeed. However you come by the motivation is entirely up to you!
But if you have a passion for something or even just a strong interest, you have to get off the couch and stop "reading" and make that shit happen!
SOMETHING THAT MIGHT HELP
Fear and laziness aside, sometimes it's just a matter of being of undisciplined. Some of us need more of a routine than others.
Something that helped me tremendously when trying to get my career started:
- Schedule everything: A time to read and a time to physically apply!
- Practice more than I read!
- Kill ALL distractions for a certain time period (not people of course!)
- Learn as quickly as I could so that I wouldn't become stuck!
- Practice Practice Practice!
This became my regiment for months. And I had to really commit to it!
Anyway
The funny thing about failing is, you can only go up from there! And you are going to fail! Over and over and over, you are going to grit your teeth and curse at walls! No amount of reading is going to prevent this!
But when it's all said and done, you are going to be the one in your field ahead of the curve!
I hope was useful guys!