What does it take for you to master a skill?  A specific task?  Your life?

What does it take for you to master a thing? Photo by Brian A. Jackson

What does it take for you
to master a thing?
Photo by Brian A. Jackson

This is a challenging question.  And it’s meant to be!  Winners pay a price, and everyone who wants to win needs to know what it will take to get where they want to go.  Once a skill is mastered, the pro can make it look easy.  But while one is still learning?  Not so much.  You have to drop a lot of balls before you can juggle 5 of them successfully!

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what I have mastered, and what I’m still learning and attempting to master.  I will say that I am feeling pretty great about the fact that the first list is now longer than the second!

But for the new things I’m still trying to master?  It’s every bit as frustrating as learning something difficult has always been; in other words, just having mastered a few things doesn’t make the rest of them easier.  The one thing that previous mastery has given me, however, is the confidence that I can learn and master things when I decide to put in the effort, even if I have to ask for help along the way.  And on that point?  Help is not a 4-letter word!  It just could be your ticket to the winner’s circle.

Here are a few things I know that I’ve mastered already:

  • how to work with my mind and consciousness
  • how to manage my anger, if it arises, and direct it in healthy ways
  • how to communicate with animals telepathically
  • how to express my thoughts clearly in writing
  • how to match flower essences up with someone who needs to make a change
  • how to blend flower essences and essential oils

I’m happy with that list of accomplishments!  There are other things that I’d put on the mastery list, but those are the ones of which I am most proud.  It took years of work, in some cases, to learn enough that I now know what to do and how to do it, and I can do it quite well.  It wasn’t always that way, I guarantee.

My current list of what I’m attempting to master?  I’ll just share with you the top 3:

  • making videos
  • making podcasts
  • generating a specific level of annual income, reliably and consistently

While I don’t know all the components it takes for YOU to achieve mastery at anything, there are a few I’d like to share with you that I believe will help anyone.  They have surely helped me, especially when the going was hard:

  1. Determination.  It takes grit to practice something long enough, and to correct your mistakes as you go, until you get it right.
  2. Belief.  You have to believe it’s possible for YOU to achieve, not just the other guy or gal.  You have to believe in yourself.  You have to believe it’s worth the effort.  And you have to believe that the work you are putting in will help you get where you want to be.
  3. Joy.  For me (and maybe for everyone) it has to be fun.  Either the process or the outcome has to be enjoyable, or what’s the point?  If it doesn’t bring you more pleasure than pain, most people won’t keep doing the hard work it takes to master something.   If it doesn’t improve your life in an important way, then maybe it’s not worth the effort.

Finally, I want to say that mastery isn’t something you attain by leaping.  There are risks you can take, and there are times when you do need to take a leap of faith.  But the journey to mastery is more like the repetitive motions an athlete or musician or martial artist does, to gain muscle memory that can’t happen any other way.  It’s a matter of building strength and endurance and reliable response.  Most of the time, that only happens one step, one practice session, at a time.  Until one day, you step into the mastery as if it’s always been there for you.

What has YOUR journey towards mastery been like?  I’d love to hear!