How to learn a new skill? Start small, Work hard and be patient!

People think that others with success are lucky. It’s not luck that made them successful. But it was working hard, being patient and starting small!

A few years (the year 2010) I finished my school. Shifted from being an intern to a full-time employee in the company where I did my internship.

With a small salary, I started as a Front-end Developer, building websites and web apps. My results at school were very good for HTML & CSS (sorry about the little technical terms! ), but on the job, they showed me that it was nothing!

I was at the beginning of my job. So I started small. I was a junior developer! I learned to start with the small things.

At the moment I’m a Senior Front-end Developer. I teach starters the basic techniques of HTML, CSS & JavaScript.

7 years ago I couldn’t imagine that I have grown so fast in my work. Couldn’t imagine that I would teach and help others learn the things I use on a daily basis.

Start small

All my web development started very small at home, the age of 14 (the year 2002). I started at the very beginning! I started very small, as a hobby.

When people want to learn a new skill, they think it’s not going fast enough. For photography. People expect to learn everything in a few weeks. Professional photographers learned to master photography in years.

People are not used to starting small! But if you look to nature, it’s a natural process!

Inspired by nature

The birth of a baby starts small, very very small. The start is too small for the human eye!

The cells that come together will grow and grow and grow. It will form a body in the womb of a woman.

Well, we all know that story right!

Then comes the birth of the baby. It will lay all day and night. It will learn to roll, sit, crawl, stands and in the end, walk.

Parents know that this is a process of months for your baby can walk. But still, it will fall and climb on its feed again. Thousands of thousands of times.

Be patient

Like the parents of the baby needs to be patient, you need to patient.

But not patient like, watch and wait. But work hard!

Let’s get back to being patient.

Being patient will help you to learn a skill. It will help you to learn anything you want!

And yes, you will fail! The purpose of failing is learning!

You will learn why you do things in a certain way.

Like the baby that learns to walk, you need to learn to take the time to own the skill.

Take the time

I’m a big fan of trance music. The beautiful track called “Time” from Headstrong ft. Stine Grove says:

“Time, has all the answers, And time still holds the key”

If you listened to this track, it will teach you that there is a time for anything. But in the end time has all the answers, time holds the key. But time will teach you!

It’s a good thing to take the time! Don’t rush!

Work hard

To go back to my own story. I’ve grown so hard these last years. That was not luck! I was working my ass off!

In my daily job I worked at projects, 8 hours a day I was writing code. That was my job, my boss was paying me a salary for that.

In the evening’s I was building my own websites. Did follow tons of tutorials online. There were many many hours in the evening that I was getting to bed very late. Waking up very early to get to work.

I worked a lot. Not for my boss. But I was investing a lot of time in myself. Because I wanted to be good in my work. Not for the pride, but I wanted to teach and help others with it!

And yes it was fun, difficult and hard. But I enjoyed the ride so much.

Succes

All those late nights, not watching a movie, but investing my time in me, was the best thing I could do!

This brought me success in my work. This made me help others. Teaching them the right technical skills, teaching them the skills to be a learner.

If people have success, and the keep it for themselves, it’s not a success, it’s called being selfish!

It’s not bad to enjoy success, but share the things you learned with others!

Why I’m telling you all this? I was very inspired by a video of “Gary Vaynerchuk” called HOW TO START.

This video made me think how I’ve done things. How I started with learning new skills.

I will learn to write better!

I’m inspired by the video of Gary, that’s why I’ve written this blog post.

Not because I’m a writer God!
Not because I’m the master in everything!
But because I love to share.
I love to learn new skills!

With this blogpost, I want to practice writing. Writing what’s in my heart. Writing what I’ve learned over the past years. What I learned previous week. What I learned today.

Hope you don’t mind giving me feedback on my writing skills.

Because I know, learning takes time and I need to be patient and work very hard for it! Yes, I’m gonna fail in writing these or other blog posts. But I’m gonna enjoy the ride!

Summary

To summarize:

1. Smart small. Split things up in smaller pieces. So you can keep track of what you learned.
2. Be patient. Be patient is a very good characteristic. Time has all the answers. Take the time to learn that skill you want.
3. Work hard. Do your best with everything. Don’t quit things you want to learn. Continue and you will have the success.
4. (bonus) Share. Share the things you learned. Write it down. Post it on your blog, Facebook. Or create a video. Have the guts to tell someone else what you’ve learned!

Originally published at ByRayRay.com.