My skills – How I got there
Learning and developing skills is not only for those who go to school. It doesn’t stop either after high school or university. We learn everyday, whether it’s about getting the ketchup out of a glass bottle properly or learning a new option in your brand new car, learning how to talk to your neighbors or how to make the perfect Lasagna. We can learn by mistake or unconsciously. Developing a skill requires motivation, inspiration and time.
I’ve learned most of the things by trying and practicing on my own. At school, I can honestly say that nobody taught me how to speak english. A 6-week trip to Australia after high school taught me more than all the english lessons I had at school. And later having a girlfriend (Linda) that spoke english helped even more. I’ve always been curious about many subjects and tried out many things, but when inspiration doesn’t connect with motivation I usually don’t waste too much energy. I believe that if something is ment to be, it’s going to be easy to learn and master it because motivation is driven by inspiration. I’ve learned to play many instruments just by really wanting to play them. I play all the instruments I need for the type of music that really inspires me. I also stop at a certain level on each instrument, when I feel that it’s enough for what I need to express myself. Playing a high speed solo on the guitar must be fun, but I would never use that for any of the song I might compose. Here are different ways on how I learned and developed skills.
School
School teaches you what a table is, high school shows you how to build one, and college meticulously guides you in the process of developing a perfectly designed table. Depending on what educational path you chose or were obliged to take, you might think that none of all that stuff was useful and find your way by trying and exploring other solutions. I’ve never been a good student until I went to high school and joined the art section. I really believe I was just lucky to find where my best skills were at that moment. I’m not saying I couldn’t have become a fireman, or a biologist, but sometimes you just feel you’re doing the right thing.
Family and friends
My parents and my brother taught me plenty of things. Thanks to my parents I’ve learned to cook at a young age, but also to sew, to build a wall if I want to… and plenty of other things. My brother taught me how to fix a bike, to be geeky with electronic devices and to master being a good second player in video games… yes, he’s older. Family and friends are a great source of inspiration and there’s nothing better than sharing an activity with someone. You can learn a new skill pretty fast with the encouragement of another person.
Self-education
My favorite way to learn something is by self-education. I can be really creative and curious when it’s about learning something new. When you really want to learn something, you look for information, you’re curious, you try, you fail, you struggle, you start again, you panic but you try to control, and at the end you’re really proud of yourself and that pushes you to the next subject. For me there is no failing, there is only motivation and interest that fades and that’s the only time when I would stop doing something.
Online courses
We all know that youtube can be really helpful when you need to know how to do something. You can probably learn how to build a plane with some research on google and watching some videos online. Another great tool we’ve found lately is ‘Skillshare‘, an online platform with teachers explaining all sorts of things. It’s really not expensive for all the nice topics you can get access to. People/Teachers share their knowledge and you enroll to their courses by watching a series of videos on their channel.
We sometimes set goals in our lives, like climbing to the top of a mountain, which requires probably something deeper than the simple knowledge of hiking. The psychological aspect in learning something is quite important. At the end it’s always the same, you need a goal and in order for it to stay real you need to be motivated and inspired by a mentor, a coach or your own will.
For what ever new thing you up to learn, I wish you good luck and a lot of motivation.
