We've all heard the old saying practice makes perfect, and yes that can be true. There
is something most people forget when it comes to practicing anything. There is a big
difference between what are taught in school learning and practicing is (long endless
hours of drilling on skills and knoweldge that is such a burden that it's barely work
what is gained) and practice that's actaully worth it.
If I wanted to tell people that it takes either raw pre-existing tallent, or endless
burdensome practice then that's been said by some many people in some many ways that
I'd be adding no value, and put simply if practicing is done for no other reason than
to get better at it is the only way to learn something then I scooped that out of a
horses stall. Yes I've been drawing most of my life but the dirty little secret is
that it wasn't practice drawing it was just drawing.
Yes people want to get be good at things, improve your skills, win that competion, be
mistaken for someone with raw tallent. Well those are great goals but what nobody ever
wants to say and everyone needs to hear is that when it comes to getting really good at
something is that it's not the destination that matters, the joureny does to. What are
you going to do once you have mastered that skill, won that competion, reached all your
goals? It's your life why spend it doing something you hate? Are you going to keep
going with what you are already good at even if all you want to do is quit? Are you
going to stop and start doing something else? If you've mastered a skill which many
sources suggest takes about 10,000 hours (that's 416.667 days if you put in a full 24
hours each day with no time for other things including sleeping, eating, and bathroom
breaks) do you really want to spend that much time on something you don't want to be
doing or will just walk away from later because you've done everything you intended
to and don't see the point in continuing?
I'm not saying everyone who's good at something is someone who loves what they do,
or follows this idea I know for a fact that there are people in this world who are
good at what they do and would rather be doing anything else with their time, but
that's 10,000 hours (or at least a certain precentage of that 10,000 hours) they
probably feel like they wasted or at least might want to spend differently if
they could go back and do it all again.
So next time someone says all you need to do is spend more time practicing something
and you'll master it eventaully, remember that yes they may be right but if you want
to get the most out of every skill you learn then you have to be able to enjoy the
learning process not just reaching the destination.
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