The Secret To Learning Difficult Skills

Have you ever seen a musician or an athlete and wonder how they got that good? Each of us are born with different talents. But none of us becomes an expert at something overnight. That is where diligence and personal discipline separates people who are good and people who are great!

It wasn’t until I was in university that I really learned the secret to conquering difficult skills. It is a  secret that can be transferred into many areas of study. Here is the secret! Break down the difficult skill into daily bite size pieces. What part of that difficult skill or task can you learn today? Then daily, step by step, slowly add to your skill level until you conquer that skill. 

Let me give you an example from my musical studies. I once had to learn a extremely difficult piece of piano music that was around eighty bars long. It was a way above my skill level. But I realized that I could learn the first two or three bars today if I just slowly broke them down and spent a couple of hours practising. I would learn the right hand for the first few bars and then I would learn the left hand for the same section. Then I would slowly put the hands together at 1/4 speed and slowly increase the speed until I had learned those few bars perfectly.

Then over a matter of a few months, working on the music daily, I slowly learned more and more bars until I had mastered that piece of music. It was just a matter of slowly learning a bit more each day in a disciplined manner. I simply learned how to practise properly and diligently. I learned not to practise my mistakes but to slowly learn something bit by bit and daily add to that knowledge.

It’s a powerful principle! I have applied it to learning new sports. I have applied it to memorizing large portions of the Bible. And, I have applied it to orchestrating large musical scores with dozens of musical instruments. It works for so many areas of life.

Learn to break down the larger problem or challenge into bite size chunks. Learn to tackle that project daily and build on the success of the day before. It is amazing what difficult skills and projects that you can conquer if you slowly develop the skills and knowledge on a daily basis.

God has given us amazing minds and bodies. If we apply great discipline, diligence and wisdom, it is amazing what we can do! It is amazing what difficult skills we can master.

Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.
Jim Rohn

All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize.
The Apostle Paul

The discipline you learn and character you build from setting and achieving a goal can be more valuable than the achievement of the goal itself.
Bo Bennett ~ Tech Guru

We all naturally want to become successful… we also want to take shortcuts. And it’s easy to do so, but you can never take away the effort of hard work and discipline and sacrifice.
Apolo Ohno ~ Olympic Gold Medal Speed Skater

We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons!
Jim Rohn

Check out my new book: “Leading Worship ~ Notes from a Grand Adventure’. It is now available in Kindle or Soft Cover Editions.  This is a great gift for the musician or worshipper in your life.