Posts Tagged ‘learning something new’

How many of you have chosen not to do something because of the time you will have to invest in it? You love music, but decide not to learn the guitar because of the time it takes to be able to play a song. Or maybe you tried to learn a language, but gave up because you realized how much time you would need to invest to be able to actually speak to someone. I most certainly have. The thought of the amount of hours it takes to learn something new has kept me away from a number of things. Partially because I didn’t have the time and partially because when you think about the time things can seem almost out of reach. However, in a world where we all seem to be so bored that we decide to sit down in front of a TV or computer for hours on end, we should be excited when we think about all the time it will take to learn something new.

It’s true that the best benefits will come from something once you get really good at it. The guitar will be the funnest once you can play well enough to play a song. But that doesn’t mean that the journey and countless hours of practice you spend to get there have to be hard. Most of the people who are really good at something got that way because they loved to practice. The best guitar players got to that point because they loved to sit and practice going through the chords again and again.

This is something I have really noticed since moving from Tokyo to the small island of Miyakojima. It seems that everyone here can play some sort of instrument, sing, or is very good at some sort of skill. The biggest difference I notice between Tokyo and Miyakojima is the environment in which people learn. Tokyo is formal and instructions and clubs can almost start to feel like jobs. Instruction is usually given from teacher to student. In Miyakojima, the learning is much more free and there are less borders between who is teaching and who is learning. Rather than formal classes there are more clubs where people gather to practice. The practice itself becomes something fun and something to look forward to.

Seeing this difference has helped me realize that the biggest reason I haven’t pursued some things is less because of the time commitements, but with the environment I will be spending the time in. Kids get good at games because the learning itself is fun. If you can find a learning environment that you enjoy then you are much more likely to continue and to pursue something else once you master it.

For myself, I will have my first lesson learning to learning to play the sanshin (a traditional Japanese three string guitar) and learning to sing Traditional Okinawan songs this Thusday. I know there will be a lot of practice and time involved and even a lot of struggle. And that’s exactly what has me so excited!

“You can’t do everything. But you can do one thing, and then another, and then another.” This was a quote from the book Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long Term Fullfillment and it’s a great point. Though in an age where with so many distractions and so many options it is something that is extremely difficult to do. Yet, the largest benefits usually come once you get really good at something. Musicians can play a tune once they master their instrument, a basketball player is able to consistently put the ball in the hoop, and an artist can control his hands precisely to make beautiful works of art. So how do does someone become great at something they do?

I hear a lot of people use the words gifted or talented when they discuss someone who is really good at something. It is true that some people have a certain disposition that allows them to excel quicker at something than others, but anyone can obtain these talents with enough dedication and practice.

Dedication

Focusing single heatedly on whatever it is you want to learn. To do so you will have to give up doing other things. However, I have found the benefit of doing something really well far out weighs the benefits of doing many things averagely. Dedicate a time to your activity and don’t let anything bother you. And definitely don’t multi-task. Multi-tasking has become popular in the last decade, but it is not efficient or effective. Once you dedicate your time, focus clearly only on that one thing.

I also recommend you choose the things you do very carefully. Since you will be spending a lot of time on something, it’s important to make sure that it is important to you. If it’s not, then you will be more likely to give it up and try something else. I have started a lot of activities on the spur only to give them up part way through. Its not that I didn’t enjoy some of them, but that time would probably have been better spent getting better at something I really cared about.

Practice

We have all heard the phrase “practice makes perfect”. My father must have told me this a thousand times as a kid. There is no doubt that the more time you spend doing an activity the better you will get at it. But putting in time practicing is only part of it. If you want to get good, and get good fast, then you need to practice in the most effective manner.

The easiest way to find this information will be in from the people who are the best in the field. Whether that be from a book or audio program or personal lessons. The time you spend finding good training materials, a good instructor, or the best methods will save you a lot of wasted time.

Stop Juggling Activities

I did this for a long time. There were so many thing I wanted to try that I ended up being able to do  bunch of things poorly. Having limited my focus to only a few, I now realize how much better it is to be good at a few.

When I was in college I choose to study Japanese. I was fascinated with the culture and really wanted to be able to speak the language. In the same language department I met a student who was taking Japanese, Chinese, and Russian all at the same time. I was very impressed. She was a very good student and defitely put in more time studying her three languages than I did with just my one. But at the end of that semester I was able to have simple conversations in Japanese where as she could only say a few words in each language. Even though she had put in more time than I had it was dispersed over three different languages and she received almost none of the benefits that studying just the one had yielded for me.