Life is a gradual journey, no one has ever figured out everything from the get-go. We grow by learning every day. We hone our skills by trying again and again. Think of all the true greats you idolize, they were once unknown figures and a novices in their trade. Life is an evolution, at some point in time we were all infants, can’t talk, can’t even sit, can’t read or write. We all evolved from one stage to another. Although some growths do come natural, special growth happens by practice. Years of consistent practice is what bred the super champions you know of today.
Michael Jordan was without any doubt a super talented athlete but there are even more talented basketball athletes that the world never discovered. What set you apart and makes you a star is your attitude. Talent is just an added advantage. If you don’t work on it, you may never make any good on your talent. How many world famous names were told they would never amount to anything? Too many to list them should be the right answer to that question. Impossibility is only a mindset. You can be whatever you want to be in life provided you put your mind and heart to it. If you want to achieve greatness in any skill, below are some tips to help you arrive there:
Find your vision
The first thing you should do is identify your goal. What is it that you want to master? Find your inspiration. Do you want to become a public speaker or a movie star? Only then you will have a clear picture of what you want to achieve. Everyone one knows Arnold Schwarzenegger. Do you know how he found his vision? He found his vision from a body building magazine. And from there he never looked back, he kept on pushing until he became what he is today. One thing that might interest you to know is that he never had all those muscles then, he wasn’t naturally muscular at all. All those muscles were made in gym.
Know your assets and liabilities
After identifying your goal, the next thing to do is to find your strength and weaknesses. We all have something in us, knowing your strength will help you use it to your best advantage. Also, we all have weak links in us, identifying your weak link will enable you work on how to improve it. Arnold Schwarzenegger after becoming a body building champion decided he wanted to go into acting. But he has one weakness then, language of communication. He needed to get rid of his German accent and also master English language better. How did he go about? He decided to enroll in an English class and accent removal classes. He also started attending acting classes as well. Nobody has ever figured out everything from the get-go.
Think big
The only thing that set you apart from the chasing park is excellence. You have to be extremely good at whatever you do. Never think small, set ambitious targets for yourself. No one is expecting to become a master at whatever you do within a short period of time but you have to be aiming for that. How do you achieve that? Just keep improving every day. You don’t have to be hard on yourself. Take it one goal at a time. If you want to become a world boxing champion, start off by winning your local boxing championship and then keep progressing from there. Never settle until you become a world champion. That’s when the world can call you a master of boxing championship. If you want to become a basket ball star, start off by dominating your college basket ball championship and aim to reach the NBA someday.
Keep track of your progress.
To master any skill, you have to be well organized. Have a plan in place and stick to it. Track your progress. How do you keep track of your progress? Be open to criticism. Ask for feedback. When you receive criticism, don’t allow ego to stop you from working on that criticism but don’t let it weakened your resolve. Ask the people around you to assess you and heed every meaningful advice you get. There is a huge advantage in knowing you are progressing. It gives you the motivation to strive for more. It also challenges you to do more if you haven’t been making any meaningful progress.
Ignore the naysayers
Truth is the world will never rate you until you break grounds. Lots of people are going to tell you can never be this and that. If you allow them to mess with your head, you are never going to master that skill you love. Arnold Schwarzenegger was told he was never going to become a world body building champion, it was an American sport. But he did it anyway. He never gave the naysayers a listening ear. He pushed himself so hard and eventually became a world champion in body building. He was also told he was too muscular to get into the movies. But he became the start of Conan the barbarian movie. He was also told that his German accent was a liability but that didn’t stop him as well.
Keep learning and work hard
Learning never stops. If you want to keep improving your skills, you have to keep learning. Even masters never stop learning. Cristiano Ronaldo after winning a joint world record 5 world best player of the year is still yet the first player to arrive at training in Juventus. After training, he will do extra more sessions before heading home. Arnold Schwarzenegger even after becoming a world champion was still training 5hours a day. You have to embrace hard work if you really want to get ahead and succeed.
Failure is part of the process
The only way you can avoid failure is to never try at all. No one is immune from failure, its part of the human nature. Failure is allowed but what you do with your failure is all that matters. If you use failure as a lesson, you learn. Defeat happens to only those who gave up. As you are trying to improve your skills, you are going to encounter failure many times. It’s inevitable. Embrace any failure that comes your way and learn from it.
