Best Advice: How to do Hard Things When They Don’t Come Easy

If you’re a smart person and you have areas where you really excel, one of the hardest things can be trying something and not being very good at it. However, often times, it might be a new skill that you need to add in your work or in your academic career. As someone who could do a few things really well and not doing many other things well at all, I have faced this many times in my life. Here’s my Best Advice on how to do hard things when they don’t come easy.

Enjoy the Process

Learning anything is a journey. For someone people, the journey to competency and mastery can be very short. For the rest of us, the journey may be a bit longer. The first thing to remember is that learning is a process and that you have to love the process. For those for whom things came easy, a long learning process may be frustrating. You might feel like a failure. Not so! Most people have to try things many times before gaining mastery. Learning can be a journey, so embrace the process of learning and consistently work to improve your skills.

Learn From Your Mistakes

Making mistakes is part and parcel of the learning process. When you make mistakes, its best to review what went wrong, figure out how to fix and continue the learning process. When I started working in design, I had to learn how to use the tools and then also learn how to actually design. I made quite a bit of crap before I got better at design and I’m not sad about the bad things I made at first. Those will all important things I made as part of my learning process. Over several years of looking at good design, studying what made it work and improving hard skills I’m slowly coming in my own. I can actually bring things in my head to life. Learning from your mistakes takes dedication but it is worth. Remember, enjoy the journey!

Seek Out Mentorship Opportunities

In both writing and design, I consistently have sought out mentorship opportunities. I was attending a writing conference in Seattle and an agent offered to read 5 pages of your manuscript and give you feedback. I signed up immediately. I learned more in that 20-minute session than I did in 3 workshops. I came away from the experience with valuable information about how to improve my manuscript. In the design side of my life, I had the chance to work with a really great designer and every time she did something or helped me I asked her about her process and how she created something. Not only did I improve my hard skills in certain programs but I also trained my eye. I’ve been fortunate to also have my own designer who created some of the graphics you see here to help me improve my own work. I’m lucky to have personal connections. If you don’t have those connections you can seek out people on twitter or take an Udemy course. Create those connections with people that you admire and take advantage of that connection as much as they will let you and keep learning while improving your skill.

Stick With It

This final piece is probably the hardest part for those with easy mastery in certain areas. The only way you can learn consistently is to be consistent in your practice. No matter what you are learning, you have to consistently move forward and consistently learn and practice. My writing improved when I had to blog daily for magazines or create content for clients. The same thing with my marketing and design. Life only improves when you show up. As the cliche goes, “showing up is half the battle.” Respect yourself and show up to your new skills. If you’re coding, figure out a project and bring it to completion. Writing? Write often. Musician? Play consistently, as often as possible. Stick with the skill and take it as far as you can go.

I hope you’ve found this advice helpful. Make sure to check out other posts in Best Advice to see my commentary on other areas of life. I hope my wisdom can help you become the best that you can be. We only have one chance to pass this pathway. It’s important to make it your own and do the most that you can with it.