Mastery is making hard things easy
Have you’ve ever seen a professional do something, and thought to yourself “I could probably do that too”, then to come to find out that it’s way harder than it looks? Chances are the professional makes it look effortlessly through years and hours of training that skill. Good thing is you can achieve that level as well if you put in the time.
Be realistic
I should put a caveat that even if you do put in the time, it’s not a guarantee that you will become world class at it. If you practice your jumper religiously, it might not be as great as Steph Curry’s jump shot. But without practice and dedication towards that area, it’ll always be difficult for you.
I don’t want to detract anyone from pursuing various things in their lives, but the truth is time is limited and the decisions you make will decide if you can attain mastery with the time given. Would you rather be average-good in 10 things or master 2-3 things? Depends who you ask, but it pays (literally) to master certain skills. 1
Mastery also takes a very long time, for many it will be decades. Do we have enough determination to keep at it for that long? What if there’s no fame and glory in it for you like professional athletes? It’s easy to say that you’ll do it and another to put in the work day after day, even when you don’t want to. You may argue that just showing up is enough, but true mastery seeks out ways to innovate, ways how other masters have done before, and ways to best make the tough "easy”. If everyone just showed up, we’d have a lot more masters of their craft. I believe the best do a little more (sometimes a lot more) than their counterpart (just showing up), and it eventually compounds over. Masters have also paid their failure debt. They’ve failed so many times that they’ve finally saw what works. Can we handled failure? Multiple failures? Even at the end of the journey— even when we think we’re good enough, there will be someone else even better. Does this take away from your mastery? I believe that’s part of the journey— finding out you’re not good as you think you are and then having another level to reach. Masters do this over and over again. They learn from people better than them and have the humility to subdue their ego.
It might overdoing it by asking ourselves all of these questions, but if we are serious about attaining mastery, why not think about the process? There’s nothing wrong about just charging forward but things usually do better with an ever-changing and restructuring plan of process. More than anything, it sets our purpose, our north star. The why behind why we do what we do. So that even in bad days, we can power through.
I always recommend taking the first step, but that’s not enough for mastery. You need a lot of steps, just a few isn’t enough. The only time a few steps are enough is if it’s a few steps everyday.
Why do we need mastery?
I truly believe mastery moves the world forward. There needs to people that takes the known limits and move the goal post further and further. To show that the impossible is doable and that with enough effort and commitment (of course, luck too), anyone could achieve it. Pushing the boundaries allows us to learn new techniques and methodologies in approaching mastery ourselves. If people were satisfied with riding horses, we wouldn’t cars. The same goes if they were just satisfied with the first model of cars, we wouldn’t have the variety and performance of cars nowadays. Especially if we were okay with cars that consuming gasoline, we wouldn’t have hybrids and electric cars as an alternative.
Every time mastery is attained, we unlock the mysteries and the process of getting there. Imagine if there was only one way to do something, especially if it’s a socio or economic barrier to it, there’d be way less experts in the field. But if more and more people find ways to master a craft with different methods, the next generation can add onto that and develop their own methods. When we see someone with improbable odds “make it”, it serves as not only inspiration for us, but also a pathway for other people with improbably odds to do it themselves.
Do your best to attain mastery
When no path is available and there’s no one to look to as a resource, that’s when we have to look to ourselves. Perhaps we are the one to unlock a new way towards mastery, but we will never know unless we pursue it vigor and drive. We can be the source of inspiration for the next generation or the mentor that they need.
Even if we don’t reach mastery, we can help someone else get there. If we envy and strive to bring others down, we just delay another’s mastery. Let’s focus on helping others so in turn we learn as well. People forget that multiple masters can thrive, there doesn’t have to be just one. There are different styles for different masters, and all of them are needed for different types of people.
There is no end to mastery, so keep striving.
If you’ve enjoyed my articles, please subscribe and share! Please connect with me on :
I wrote about getting paid with your skills: Iterate until you get paid