How to develop a skill

This article is an excerpt from Learn Better.          

         In your life, are you thinking to excel specific skills? Here I am going to share with you how to develop a skill effectively. The first step is you must have a clear performance goal. You must know which area you should improve. It is a waste of your time if you practice without knowing your goal. Divide a skill into different parts and track them. You can assign weightage of each part so you can evaluate yourself based on your performance during a practice session. You can ask your friends to give feedback to you. Ask them to give suggestions to you and you can know yourself better.  For example, I want to learn public speaking.I deconstruct the public speaking into subskills such as vocal variety, hand gesture, self-confidence, pace, and the list goes on. I only focus on specific parts at each practice session. When I practice the speech, I use a smartphone to record myself and track my performance on my pace and self-confidence. I notice whether I have delivered each of the words clearly and confidently. After a certain period, I can see my improvements and proceed to the next subskills.  It shows that I have grown after each practice session.

Bear in mind that the quality of repetition is more important than the number of repetitions. Quantity of repetitions can save your time to excel at one skill.Next, you must accept the fact that the nature of learning is struggling. Normally, you feel struggle when learning because learning does not have a comfort zone. An effective way to practice a skill is to use the retrieval practice technique. Try to recall the information after you have to learn a new skill or a new way of improvement. It makes you have a better memory and better understanding. Read a passage one time and recall the passage three times is better than read a passage four times. Focus on the process. Engage the information at least three times to create a clear understanding.  If you are practicing a subskill, practice the same skills at least three times to create a better performance. Be patient and persistent throughout the practice session. Beginner to expert transformation takes time. During the practice session, have you know that our brain is changing? Our brain will change the structure itself when we are practicing. The brain is dealing with the mental struggle. The brain starts to change because it wants to adapt to the learning environment and reconnect all the new information. If you can go through a critical period, a new you are born because you have acquired a new skill! It sounds amazing, right? Don’t limit and underestimate yourself. Try to gain more skills and learn more and enhance your quality of life. 

         The process of learning is the process of emotional control. Life is like a roller coaster. Sometimes you at the peak and sometimes you at the bottom. It is the same as the learning process. It is normal that you miss certain practice sessions because of a lack of self-discipline. You feel that you do not have enough willpower to continue the practice because you can't go through the struggling period. You start to doubt yourself. The first thing you can do is identify your feeling. The solution to deal with your bad feeling is to talk to yourself. Send yourself a motivating message. Use “you” in the message is more definitive and you will more able to listen to your voice. For example, you can think about it is normal to fail now. You can do it better next time. The second solution is to use the if..then plan. Remind yourself if I practice now, I can go out and play later. You will follow your thoughts because it is clear and precise. Try to convert your action to habit so that you can manage your emotion easily. Delay gratification and aim for greater success. If you can resist temptations, you can gain more self-control and become more self-discipline.  

          The learning journey is always full of obstacles. If you feel tired, take a short break and go out with your best friends. Life is like a marathon. Stay learning and motivated to achieve the life we want. Remember that only you can design your own life. Success will come if you believe in winning and prepare for that moment.