Practice two different skills 40-45 minutes each, every day for a month.
Check in with yourself once a week and make sure what you’re pursuing is truly what you want and enjoy doing. [2] X Expert Source Kirsten Parker, MFAMindset & Action Coach Expert Interview. 22 July 2020. Don’t worry if you miss a day of practicing one of your talents once in a while. If you practice each skill almost every day for a month, you’ll have put in about 20 hours of focused practice on improving each of the talents you hope to develop!
Ask yourself; What, specifically, do you need to be good at in order to be more talented at whatever ability you’re developing? Choose specific objectives to achieve each time you sit down to practice something. Repeat a small task or process many, many times until you’ve mastered it. [3] X Research source For instance, if you’re trying to improve your ability to play a sport, choose an extremely basic aspect of playing that sport and spend 45 minutes straight on just that specific aspect. For example, if you’re hoping to become a better soccer player, dribble a soccer ball back and forth on the field with just one foot. If you’re hoping to improve your talent as a basketball player, shoot only lay-ups. Deconstructing your effort to improve one talent will help you improve other talents as well. Following the sports example, doing anything physically active will get you in better shape and improve your coordination, both of which will increase your physical abilities generally.
Moving forward, your practice will become more efficient. This is because you have gained a solid base of knowledge from which your talent will more naturally progress. For instance, if you’re hoping to improve your ability to play an instrument, practice playing the same single notes or chord so frequently than you automatically know exactly what you did wrong when the sound is even a little bit off.
Get in the groove of practicing at the same time of day each day. Try practicing skills related to two talents you’re hoping to improve upon back-to-back. Get in the habit of practicing one talent then immediately practicing the other. For example, right when you get home from a daily run, sit down to paint. Grouping your practice sessions together will encourage you to do both consistently. Work on two widely different talents to increase the variety of your daily activities. Following the example used in this step, doing something active like running pairs well with something creative and contemplative, like painting.
Set aside a block of time devoted exclusively to practice and commit to practicing for that full length of time. Set a timer if you’d like. Turn your phone on silent. Make sure there are no screens running in your vicinity (unless you’re using them to help you practice). If you have music playing, consider choosing something without lyrics.
Overcome fear. Audacious, yes. But reflect on what’s holding you back. The most common barriers to acquiring talent are based on your emotions. Recognize this and prevent emotional perspectives, such as fear, from preventing you from pursuing whatever talent you wish to acquire. Filter out the negative. We tend to filter out the positive and be overly concerned with the negative, especially in terms of our perspective on our own abilities. Don’t fall for this mental trap. Contemplate your room for improvement only so far as it motivates you to continue improving. Recognize the middle ground. Abandon the concept of perfection. Don’t think that you must be perfect at something to consider yourself talented.
Respond to negative thoughts that arise by re-framing them in equally true, but more positive perspectives. For instance:[7] X Trustworthy Source Mayo Clinic Educational website from one of the world’s leading hospitals Go to source Instead of thinking, “I’ve never done this before, and it seems hard,” think, “Here’s an opportunity to learn, and there are a few different ways to approach this. ” Instead of thinking, “I’m too lazy” or “There’s no way I can do that,” tell yourself, “I haven’t put enough time into this, but I can at least try it and see how it goes. ” Finally, don’t get discouraged by thoughts about how slowly your talents are improving. Decide to tell yourself that it’s worth one more try.
Maintaining a positive mindset will not only improve your mood, but will help motivate you to stick with the hard work required to acquire new talents. [8] X Trustworthy Source Mayo Clinic Educational website from one of the world’s leading hospitals Go to source
If there are tangible indications of your progress (perhaps especially paintings), place them in locations you will frequently see them in order to motivate yourself to continue practicing and improving upon your talents!
This may actually require that you do take off one day a week. This is important to do if it improves your ability to practice effectively for the rest of the week.
Know you’ll need some grit. Psychologists have come to use the term “grit” when referring to an attribute held by successful people. Grit indicates both perseverance and passion in pursuing long-term goals. [11] X Research source Overcoming adversity in pursuit of developing your skills also positively contributes to improve your talents more generally. When facing challenges that others might not have to deal with, tell yourself that by overcoming them, you’ll have a step up on everyone else.
Observe and play without inhibition. Inspiration and curiosity will inevitably hit you and you’ll end up pursuing talents you’ll be interested in enough to stick with. Ignore the technical aspects of the talent you’re hoping to acquire. You can bring in the technical aspects of perfecting your abilities once you’re committed. Don’t try to judge where your interests are coming from. Avoiding these tendencies will allow your more creative and emotional aspirations to get you hooked on something.
Becoming interested in something you’ve read is seen as an indication that you may take especially well to the material. [13] X Research source If you become interested in something new, throw yourself at it. There are literal advantages to reading too: you learn about language and writing, about whatever era of history is relevant to the book, and, of course, about the content contained in the book. You’re immediately more knowledgeable about all sorts of stuff, just by dragging your eyes back and forth across a page and interpreting a bunch of printed words! Of course, nothing compares to hands-on experience. Whatever you read about that appeals to you, practice doing it yourself and develop a new talent!
