Skills do more than just pay the bills

The idea that we stop learning when we finish high school or university is as outdated as the concept of having one job for the rest of our lives.

The industrial mindset is currently being replaced by the entrepreneurial mindset. In the same way, the concept of structured education at the start of our lives is being replaced by a commitment to lifelong, self-directed learning.

Education is something other people bestow on you. Learning is something we do for ourselves.

As a university lecturer, I obviously see the value in a formal education and many people undertake a qualification because of the ability to upgrade jobs, earn more and, learn new skills, not to mention the benefits of deadlines, networks and peer motivation.

However, formal education is only one type of “schooling”. A university degree can teach software for example, but when I graduated from university, there was no such thing as web design. As a graphic designer, this was a type of schooling I had to undertake on my own. Most of the first wave of web designers were self-taught. As the new technology emerged, universities struggled to keep up with demand for a new course, so we learnt as we went.

New knowledge and skills can be developed anywhere and can either happen deliberately or accidentally.

Lifelong learning is about actively engaging in the pursuit of knowledge for personal and professional development.

Typically, we look to formal education and qualifications for professional development and self-directed learning for personal development to enable personal growth, though this is not always the case.

Master your learning

Colin Rose uses the mnemonic MASTER when discussing the six stages to becoming an effective learner:

• Motivation. Without effective motivation, we are unlikely to stick with the process.
• Acquire. The ability to acquire the resources we need to learn is essential.
• Search. The search for deeper meaning behind what we are doing and ways to contextualise it are also important.
• Trigger. We cannot retain information unless we can work out how to trigger it. Notes, files, studio practice are all ways to trigger our new learning.
• Examine. Adopting an enquiring mind, always examine ways to improve knowledge.
• Reflect. Learning is most valuable when you use an iterative process or learning and reflecting. What worked and why? What didn’t and how can we improve next time?

One of the first steps to becoming an everyday creative is to build confidence with small, measurable achievements that build on each other. A terrific way to do this is to actively learn a new skill for the sheer joy of learning.

Start simple

The trick is to start simple. Rather than launching straight into a three-year coding degree, build up your skill muscles by giving yourself a defined length of time to learn a measurable skill.

Be very specific about what you hope to achieve in a defined timeframe, otherwise you can only compare yourself to someone who has worked at the skill for longer than you.

Outline some things you would hope to achieve in say three weeks time, set some measurable goals then stop and look back at what you have achieved. These small, measurable steps build confidence.

Define your skill

Taking some time to define your new skill is important. The most important thing about this new skill is that it is quantifiable, definable, and measurable, so “Learning to Paint” might be a great new skill, but it is not measurable. How does one know when they have successfully “learned to paint?”

I have been painting for 23 years, and I’m still not as good at it as I would like to be. Instead, by defining the task you can say “I want to learn how to paint a realistic looking human eye using watercolour over two three-hour sessions”. Much better. The task is defined, the medium, the timeframe and no doubt you can find a YouTube video with step-by-step instructions to help you get there.

You might want to use your journal to write a list of ten possible new things you would like to learn, then spend some time defining whether you will be able to learn anything useful in three weeks.

Depending on the skill you’re trying to learn, you might nail it in one session, or you might need to plan it over a few weekends. You might need specialist tools that require pre-planning, or it might be something you can learn on the train or in the car. You can read about stealing time for yourself here.

The next step is to build on your daily ritual by adding a weekly ritual. Sunday afternoons are good, but it’s up to you when you can steal 2–3 hours of playtime a week. The good news here, is you’re learning a new skill this time, so it’s often easier to justify this activity to those around you. If there are time thieves in your family, you might need to do it when they’re out, or asleep.

Some three-week skill building suggestions

• Learn how to dismantle, clean and reassemble a carburettor in three hours.
• Create a full lowercase gothic black letter alphabet using a bamboo nib.
• Learn how to juggle three balls with dropping any.
• Memorise a 500-word speech and recite it word-for-word.
• Learn all of the elements of the periodic table.
• Learn to say ten complete sentences in Spanish.
• Sew and fill four new pillowcases for the sofa.
• Learn how to make 20 origami animals from memory.

It is entirely up to you what new skill you learn, but the rules of this new skill are that it sounds like fun, you can access a book, person or video who can teach you the skill, and you will be able to demonstrate that you have learned the skill at the end of a three-week period.

If it is a skill you have always wanted to learn, then wonderful, but if it’s a completely useless skill, or an impressive party trick, then that is also wonderful.

All that matters is that the new skill is definable, measurable, takes practice and you don’t actually know how to do it right now.

Resources

Do you have access to the resources you will need, and can you find someone or something to teach you the skill? It is all very well to want to learn to waterski, but if you are nowhere near water for the next three weeks, it’s not going to happen.

There might also be creative ways to get around the resource problem. You might have portrait photography on your list of skills to learn, but no SLR. Is a short course in iPhonography an option instead?

Time management

Once you have defined your skill, you’ll need to block out time to learn it. For many, this is the problem, but the surprising thing people find about this exercise is that it actually takes less time than you think it will. For many it’s just getting started.

If the exercise will probably take three hours and you can’t block out three hours in one session, try splitting it into three one-hour sessions over the three weeks.

The good thing about learning a new skill is that it’s OK to be bad at it. You don’t need to expend any creative energy whatsoever, you are simply following instructions. Learning things requires repetition, so just follow, step-by-step and keep at it until you’ve got it.

Sharing is caring

The fun thing about this exercise is that once you’ve learned the new skill, you can share it with others if you want to. Give those origami animals to your kids. Wow your friends with your ability to juggle, impress your husband with his refurbished carburettor. Find a Spanish friend and ask them where the bathroom is. There is nothing more satisfying than evidence that you have applied yourself and learned something new.

What new skill can you learn this week?

This post first appeared on the Everyday Creative blog.