Five tips to master any skill

Take a leap forward and experience something new. We explore how you can adapt your approach to help master any skill.

Some people in the world today are happy in their comfort zone, being able to go through day-to-day life without making large strides towards important goals. Most of us can understand why, because the amount of time and effort it takes to learn a new skill or do something totally different with your life can seem very daunting.

If you do want to embark on the journey of learning a new skill, read these five tips that will help you do just that.

1. Analyse the skill to make it less overwhelming

Learning a new skill can be extremely overwhelming because you don’t know where to start. Some skills are even a mesh of other skills put together. Take football for example, you need physical strength, fitness, foot-to-eye co-ordination, hand-to-eye co-ordination if you play in goal and also a great amount of composure.

By breaking the skill down, you can target on an aspect of this skill to start learning or improving first.

2. Commit to 20 hours of practice

Schedule the hours into your week so you have no excuse to skip it.

The first few hours of practise will always be hard, but it is imperative that you don’t lose confidence in your own abilities. It will get easier!

3. Have a true end goal

You might want to master a new skill, but everybody has a different perception on what mastering a skill actually is.

For example if you wanted to learn guitar, you might think learning Stairway to Heaven would be the idea of mastering the skill, but someone else’s interpretation might be learning Comfortably Numb.

If you set an insurmountable goal to reach in your 20-hour practise time, you are more likely to give up sooner. But if you set a reasonable goal, you are more likely to carry on.

4. Visualise

Visualise yourself learning and performing your chosen skill. This can boost your morale and make you feel more confident in yourself.

5. Be confident, but be humble

After the first few hours you might be picking up a few tricks, after the first 10 you might be getting a lot better from when you started. Confidence is great, but don’t let it go to your head. Don’t be too cocky as you might feel like that you know it all, but let’s be honest, you probably won’t. Feel proud of your achievements, and keep the mindset that you can always improve.

If you would like advice from a life coach to help you achieve your goals, please use our advanced search tool.

Read and comment on the original Lifehack article.