Developing a New Skill

In order to learn a new skill or develop mastery in any field it is first beneficial to ask yourself and contemplate these questions:

How are things learned?
How did I learn?

This will allow you to tap into and observe from your own direct experience how you have learned things in your own life, rather then just searching for “experts” to tell you how to do something. Since you are different then me, and I am different then you, why not get to know yourself by spending sometime observing your life and how things developed for you. No matter who you are, you learned somethings and that experience is a powerful tool. Yet, most people never think of it like that.

If you reflect back on some of the most fundamental experiences in your life, such as walking lets say for this example. You will notice that there was no classroom, lecture, or workshop that you attended. All there was, was the desire, a need to get somewhere else and just that started the process. It took hundreds, if not thousands of attempts to get everything right. The major difference was that there was no mind yelling at you in the background to turn your foot more, or push off harder, or stay balanced, or telling you that you will never get it and others have learned faster then you. It was just a process of getting up, falling, getting up again, falling again and so on….

It’s very beneficial that eventually a mind develops and allows us to gather information on things and do all sorts of calculations, but that same benefit turns quickly into a cost when the chattering never stops and even hijacks the process that before was so much more efficient and enjoyable.

I have spent more than 25 years in the field of tennis. I was a Nationally ranked Canadian tennis player and coached many great players. You know how they all and I developed? By having a desire, a need and just going with the process. You will get thrown all sorts of curves throughout your journey, but if you keep getting up, falling, getting up again, and on and on it goes, it will be almost impossible to stop you from mastering something.

The beauty with life is that the human that you are occupying at the moment is directly connected to everything in life, which means that whatever you are drawn to and would like to develop in is possible and there is no stopping you because you and it are ultimately one.


Leave a Reply