How many times has someone mentioned something to you and you have responded “oh I’m not good at that”? But in reality, have you actually given yourself enough time to be anything but bad at it?

Maybe it’s because of the time we live in. You can order something from amazon and it’s with you the next day, or you can access any information in the world you want through a device that fits in your pocket. Whatever the reason, we don’t allow ourselves the time needed to truly master anything.

They say it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill so if you are looking at someone who you perceive to be “crushing it” in any facet of life, what you are seeing and the result of hours upon hours of work. 

If you don’t believe me, look at anything you would consider yourself to be in any way proficient at. Did you learn to do that overnight? I’m guessing the answer is no. For example, anyone who has learned a second language be it in school, or as a hobby as an adult. You didn’t spend two days studying and suddenly become fluent, did you? Even after years of learning, you may not be fluent but that’s normal isnt it? Well, it’s the same for any new skill that you try to learn.

Often times we give up long before we can even get to the stage of being bad at something, it’s “hard” or “you don’t like it” or it makes you “uncomfortable”. But the reality is nothing grows in the comfort zone. 

So how do you overcome this?

You have to embrace being a beginner again. It’s not your fault you’re bad at it, but you’ll never be good at anything if you aren’t first bad at it. Dedicate a little bit of time to whatever you want to master every day, or even a few times a week. It doesn’t have to be hours and hours, however, you need to consistently show up for a certain amount of time.

Remember you will get frustrated and want to pack it in. Progress will almost certainly be slower than you want, but that will make reaching your goal so much sweeter when you get there. 

Set reminders of when to work on it, and keep track of your progress. Just because you are not where you want to be yet, doesn’t mean you haven’t moved off step one. Doing this makes you more likely to keep moving forward instead of giving up because you can’t see how far you’ve come.

Real change and really mastering anything takes time. The time is going to pass anyway, wouldn’t you rather spend it being the best that you can be?