How to Learn ANYTHING!!!
Posted December, 29th 2013
I ran across a video with an amazing message while surfing around YouTube this past weekend.
It's posted below.
In addition to piano playing cats, cartoon unicorns, and other entertaining gems YouTube does actually still have some useful content.
This particular lesson I stumbled upon is the answer to everyone who’s been wondering how to begin the intimidating process of building a home studio, learning a new instrument / software, or pretty much anything!
As part of the “Ted Talks” series, this 20 minute video breaks down the barriers of getting started so you can... ACTUALLY GET STARTED vs. just talking about it.
Give it quick watch before reading on!
The First 20 hours - How to Learn Anything
The speaker talks about the tricks we play with ourselves in the spirit of “almost” beginning to learn a new skill, which really boils down to just another form of procrastination… and it’s no surprise to me that he uses a musical example to drive his point home.
See the performance that inspired his ukulele routine in the video below from Axis of Awesome!
Axis of Awesome - The 4 Chord Song
Some of the points that resonated with me most are:
1. Buying a Bunch of Books
“Once I finish these books… THEN I can begin...” I ran into this myself years ago prior to launching the website!
2. Doing a Bunch of Internet Research
“I need to find another online forum and find out the BEST way to start...” NOOOOOOO!!!
3. Plain Old Excuse Making
“I don’t have time… I’ll carve some time out over my weekend..." (or holiday / or after the new year / or after I have kids / or once my kids are grown / you get the idea).
Just Do It
The bottom line is that no one likes to suck at anything.
I once played in a roller hockey league - but there were a few problems.
Mainly, I had no skating ability, no stick handling ability, and the only rules I knew were from the NHL ‘96 video game for the Super Nintendo (which I was simply BRILLIANT at by the way), but only with the offside turned OFF!!!
Generally, I am a very competitive and athletic individual and at NO TIME was I EVER as bad at a sport as I was at roller hockey… but once I acknowledged that I was undoubtedly THE WORST it was very liberating.
I realized that the fear of being terrible was much worse than the reality of it.
That being said I still need to remind myself that “Being Terrible” is step 1 of “Being Amazing”.
Before the new year is up make the pledge to learn something new that you’ve been putting off.
I hope you’ll be as inspired by Josh’s message in the video as I was.
So in that vein, my goal is to be able to dribble left handed by using the learning techniques that are discussed in the clip.
My next goal after that is to blow away the competition in my pickup-after-work-basketball league and anoint myself “Ambidextrous Point-Guarding BAD ASS” for the new year (and forever more!)
Join me in learning something new and having fun doing it. Stop researching and start DOING (and yes this includes www.basic-home-recording-studio.com!).
I’m delighted that you visit, but remember that to learn and not do is really NOT TO LEARN!
Don’t ever let your mind stop you from having a good time!
