“When you wake up in the morning at a quarter to five and you just can’t wait to come alive, You brush your teeth ch ch ch ch, ch ch ch ch….” – Raffi
Besides the occasional slow day, how often do you forget to brush your teeth? How about comb your hair? Take a shower? Eat breakfast? Put on your seatbelt? Mow your lawn? Check your bank account? Watch “So You Want to be the Next Big Thing #7” on TV?
Not often, I bet. For whatever reason, you have built up a habit of doing these things. You’ve gone through the learning stage and are now at the “I don’t even have to think about it anymore” stage. That’s called “unconscious competence” by the way.
This is all part of the Learning Curve. A fancy little line that shows we start off with nothing, we meet difficulty, we start to learn, and eventually we’re awesome at it. ‘It’ is everything you’ve ever learned, or tried to learn, in your life.
Expect to Try, Not to Win
Unless you make up your mind to get passed the slumps of learning, you won’t continue on. The slumps are built in and you have to work through them. Think of them as the “trial by fire” before you become good at something. There’s no way around it.
You weren’t stopped because you’re no good – you stopped because you didn’t know you just had to keep on going. Perfection is a long way off. For your new learning experiences, expecting anything close to perfection is dangerous.
Expectations are what you get. Perfection is impossible.
Expect perfection – get impossibility.
Your confidence increases with knowledge of what’s coming. The fear of the unknown is no longer an enemy. You know there will be bumps – it’s by design. You can’t skip it. Learning to ride a bike includes at least one fall, a scraped knee, and a few tears.
How about this instead:
expect to try as best you can. Expect that there will be slumps and you can get over them. Expect to keep trying. Expect to learn.
Habits Take Time
I took up making videos as a hobby a few years back. I had no idea where to start, but I knew I wanted to have some fun throwing stuff on YouTube. So what did I do? I hit record and just went at it. Sure, I had some ideas of what I wanted to say, but not much else.
I didn’t know how to shoot video properly, how to make sure audio quality was good, how to edit, how to be effective in delivering a message, or even how to look at the camera. I was about as green as they come. It was awkward. It still is. I watch those first few videos again for encouragement – and chuckles.
A few years later, over 70 videos later, and hundreds of thousands of views later, I think I have a decent grasp on the hobby. I am still nowhere near professional, but I can make a good fake. I am dangerous enough to make some people laugh and learn without falling asleep. Mostly.
There’s No Express Lane to Habit-Ville
Building habits is not an overnight process. It takes some real effort, patience, and most of all – time. Time to learn things and then try them out. Time to round out your rough edges. Time to work on the basic tools of the trade, before you begin to shine. Time to hone your craft and then start making art.
Some folks will recommend sticking with something new for at least 21 days to make it stick. Some say a week. Some say a life-time. The definitive answer for you is – it depends.
For me, it takes about 4 months of active study or use before I have a good feel for whether or not I should continue. Take woodworking. I built up set of basic knowledge and got to a point where I felt comfortable. Comfortable with the amount of money I invested and with the level of output I could achieve. After about 4 months, I decided my level of wood-craftsmanship was just what I wanted – as a hobby.
And that’s what it’s going to take for you. You have to find your time-frame for learning. You should be able to come up with a good guess if you think back to some hobbies you’ve tried before. If not, then I will be one to suggest 21 days. Give anything new at least 3 weeks of focused effort to make it stick.
Money saving advice: do NOT invest heavily in any interest until you pass your “comfortable time.” You only want to put money into something that won’t end up as another fly-by-night interest.
Keep on Brushing Up
Take this approach to your learning here. You won’t be able to have huge self-growth on the first day. Probably not even by the 21st day. But you will begin to build a habit that will get you there.
Make your new growth as easy to you as brushing your teeth. Keep at the growth process and you won’t even have to think about it anymore. It will become automatic. You’ll have a deep drive to enhance your life and those around you.
Start any good habits lately?
| Photo by: kkinjo |