Strategic skills Archives - from Gnome to Goliath

How to Climb the Wall

When learning a new skill, the moment when your will drops below your skill is called the wall. To succeed, you need to climb the wall.

Every time when you start something new there is a moment when your willpower drops below your perceived skill level. This moment is called the wall. It looks daunting but eventually, if you keep practicing both, your skill level and your willpower start going up. You have started to climb the wall. If you persist, you will get to the peak and then … you will see another mountain to climb.

In this article, I will give you my tips for the hardest part in acquiring any new skill – the climb. If you zoom our, you will notice the same principle at a higher level – your career, your relationship, your life. Hopefully, you will also find ways to apply what you have learned to other areas, not only when learning a skill.

The Habit of Embracing Change

Change is everywhere and it is here to stay. You can either suffer constantly when the next change hits you, or you can adopt a habit of embracing it.

Change is a constant factor in our everyday lives. Now, when the whole world is practicing social distance and/or quarantine, in a situation that only a few anticipated, change is even more relevant. But we, humans, are not built flexible. Most of our brains’ efforts are spent to find a safe behavior and make us stick to it. This is a challenge because nothing is safe in times of uncertainty and change.

In this article I will show you how to adopt a habit of embracing change. There are many things that can help you be successful in your personal and professional life, but this skill is going to make you successful at almost anything. As we get further into the twenty-first century, I believe that there will be two skills which will be more and more valuable. Learning how to learn fast and learning how to embrace change.

Do What You Love or Love What You Do

Doing what you love is bad advice. Working hard, improving the skills that stand out, taking small steps forward, is what gets you to love what you do.

Should you try to do what you love (a.k.a. your passion) for a living? You get bombarded with this question over and over again in your everyday life. It is on the social media (e.g. people posting about doing what they love and getting paid for it). It is also on the TV (e.g. famous celebrities evangelizing their lifestyles and how they satisfy even their weirdest pleasures). And of course, it is also in the movies and songs (e.g. those influencers that changed the world by pursuing their dreams). In short, doing what you love is about following your passion.

In this article, I will argue against following your passion. And I will argue for another approach – adopting a different mindset, deliberately working on your habits, defining the areas where you are great, and, ultimately, learning to love what you do. In short, defining the passion as the product of your work, rather than defining work as the product of your passion.