RazzWorks

Yes you can!

We never stop learning whether its intentional or not. Be it a lesson learned from life experience or a new hobby we diligently practiced for months. Is there something new you’d like to learn? Have you tried and given up because it was too difficult or took too long?

I’m going to help you by going over some examples from my own life. But first there are two things you should know.

1. If you can read you can learn anything. There are web sites and books about absolutely everything.
2. Do you know the most important thing that will make learning any new skill possible? I bet you do but you don’t want to believe its true. It is! Believe in yourself! Believe you can do it! Believe you have the intelligence and resolve to do whatever you choose!

Now let’s apply the 1% concept and see how it’s done.

You can do this!

In my previous post I talked about the 1% concept in relation to getting things done like projects or paperwork. Do some small task every day until its finished. Well the 1% to learning new skills is very similar, really just part of the same concept.

Say you want to learn to make something out of wood. Anyone can do it. There are a number of steps that can be broken down into smaller ones. You need to work these out for yourself but basically you decide what you’re making, find a pattern or instructions, gather the materials and build the item. Sounds easy if you know what you’re doing right?

What was that? You’ve never used the tools before? Well that’s easy to remedy. 1% per day practice with the tools on scrap wood. Find someone who does know to show you and/or go to YouTube and watch videos. Keep practicing every day. It doesn’t have to be for a long time but efficiency will come with practice.

Eventually you will feel confident enough to try the project you chose. It won’t happen overnight but how bad do you want this? Does it matter how long it takes? If it took you 5 years would it still be worth it? Only you can answer these questions but you get the point. Chances are if you don’t want to put in the time then you don’t want it bad enough. That’s ok, move on to something else that you’re more passionate about.

You can get smarter

You can apply this concept to almost anything. Doing taxes, home repairs, saving money, losing weight, running a marathon, knitting. Whatever it is you want to do or be better at you only need to slow it down to a pace you can manage. If you can read you can learn anything. You can become smarter, more efficient, healthier and much more 1% at a time.

Maybe you’d like to be able to knit. I was taught the basics as a child. I was also taught to crochet and that worked out much better for me. Knitting just felt awkward so I gave it up. Until a few years ago that is.

I decided I wanted to knit so I picked up my needles and gave it a try. Amazingly I still remembered how to cast on and could even do knit and pearl stitches, though I didn’t know which was which. The internet helped me figure that out then my mother taught me to knit a dishcloth. I still prefer to crochet but I CAN knit. If I wanted to be an expert knitter I would commit to knitting a little bit every day. But I’m content with my current competency.

If you don’t have any prior knowledge you start with one thing at a time. Read a book or web page on what you’re interested in, watch some videos or find someone to coach you. Break down the steps you’ll need to take and work on them a little each day. Each day that you know a little more about your chosen skill you are 1% smarter and 1% closer to being a master/expert.

So how can you apply this to other skills? I can’t cover them all here however there will be posts about many different things in the future. Leave a comment below and tell me what skills you’d like help with and I’ll compile a list to write about.

Roze