In the thread where I asked what people do to generate ideas user specialk16 talked about wishing he/she had some "kind of creative talent, music, writing, or drawing." cwenham had some thoughts on how to improve those skills.
Given that everyone is at least pretty good at something and has put in the hours and effort to improve, what do you personally do to improve your skills? Do you have a method, or is it something that has happened organically for you? If it has happened organically, are there any patterns that you've found have worked for you on reflection?
A lot of people here are skilled in a diverse array of areas that I'm sure others have an interest in and I thought that it might be constructive to talk about some of those skills and how to improve on them.
For example, I for one would really like to know more about getting better at drawing and I am starting to think about taking a class, but I'm not really sure what to look for in a quality drawing class, or how to go about improving my skills or recognizing bad drawing habits I might have.
While I completely agree with everyone who has said practice and critique are important, I would add that you need to know what the state of the field is. For example, if you're learning about drawing, practice drawing, but read everything you can about how others draw. What materials do they use? How do they generate good contrast? What is the history of the type of pencil you're using? (I'm just pulling these specific questions out of my ass, because I don't know much about drawing; probably an educated person would have better questions.) I think all these small details make a difference in understanding why people do the things they do. My craft is science, and I'll tell you I spend more time reading than doing. And I think it makes me way better at doing what I do. Whatever it is you choose to do, many others have done it before you. You should learn form their experience, as well as yours. TL;DR: Read obsessively.
Very free form. Once you find a few interesting sources in the subject you're studying, you're in business. That's because a) you develop a huge reading list from the works cited in the current work, and b) you come across things you didn't know and then you have new avenues to explore. I think you need a split between theoretical and practical knowledge, although the exact split probably depends on the field. If all you possess is practical knowledge, then you're probably missing a lot about why it is you're doing what you're doing, and you're probably being terribly inefficient, as well. If all you possess is theoretical knowledge, then you're probably sitting in a chair doing nothing but thinking about how smart you are. The good part is that if you're truly interested in the material, even dry technical crap can be very captivating. Do what you're passionate about and do it all in.
Wikipedia may get you long way these days. I'm studying to be a mechanical engineer because I'd like to be a product design engineer someday. What have I found from wikipedia? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoekens_linkage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maraging_steel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_metamaterials I may not use any of these ever, but stuff like this keeps me motivated and helps me to know what can be done.
I've been playing bass long enough to recognize that just playing is not practicing. You can plunk around all day and still not get a tiny bit better. Actual practice may be a bit unpleasant but it will make you better. It's been said before that if you don't sound bad, you aren't practicing. I feel that this kind of lesson will apply to many areas. Regarding drawing, an important first step is to learn to draw with the right side of the brain. Once you learn to draw what you see and not what you think you should see, then you can make some progress. Drawing from life and photos is important to begin with. However, you'll hit a wall if all you do is that. You'll eventually want to start drawing using other art as reference; it will make you break your habits of how to draw something. You'll learn to draw things and achieve effects the way someone else does it, imitate their techniques, learn how to bridge stylistic approaches with realism, etc.
That's a really good point. It reminds me of a principle of teaching, which is that growth is encouraged by not letting students become too comfortable. By keeping students off balance, students are forced to draw on other skills and experiences to deal with different situations than they might otherwise choose to. This principle can be applied to something like exercise as well. Doing only pushups will help you become better at pushups, but will not help you to increase your overall fitness. Also, repetition will eventually cause stress and the plateauing that you mentioned. By hitting the muscle fibers from different angles, more profound growth and strength will be realized. To return to your example of playing bass, how do you recognize when to change up your practice regimen or make a decision on how to change it up?
I work as a consultant, which is to say I'm in sales. I take C-level meetings with mid to large sized businesses on a weekly basis. One thing I do, which could be applied to most any undertaking is a self critique. When I leave a meeting I will intentionally reflect on the things I did well as well as the things I could improve upon. If things went well I ask myself "why" did they go well. I access how much of the talking I did, did I ask the right questions, why were they the right questions etc. I've been through thousands of hours of training over the years to become better at my chosen profession. This actually ties in nicely to the conversation b_b, geneusutwerk and AlderaanDuran are having here. My college education has almost nothing to do with my successes. Nor has anyone in my organization ever asked me where I went to school. They do ask me if I hit my growth metrics for the month/year etc. For the most part in business, nobody cares where you went to school but they do care whether or not you are capable. There's a saying in sales, "You're as good as your numbers". -The numbers don't lie... and they certainly don't care where you went to school.
I also work as a consultant but for a very tiny firm (12 employees total including the two co-owners) dealing with a very niche issue. During my time here I've seen the exact opposite of what thenewgreen is talking about and how much it fails. No one here tries to think critically about what happened with a client, why we got it or why we didn't (well not beyond "another consultant firm stole em"). Because of this the firm has basically stagnated it seems. We have meetings where everyone just tries to brag about what they are doing and nothing is gained. The only time we've though self critically is when we lost a bunch of hires (either because they were fired or left). The owner finally made people think about what happened in the hiring procedure and why we didn't get anyone new. This has helped a little but not a lot, because it was only a blip. Pardon all this rambling, but the gist of what I'm saying here is that thenewgreen is right, one has to analyze what happened. Don't let failure drag you down because you are analyzing it, try to learn from it instead.
Yes, self-critique is, I think, one of the most important tools for improving on something. I also like that you touched on talking time. In my previous field, TEFL, it was called Teacher Talking Time (TTT) and learning to manage that to one's advantage was hugely helpful in teaching and has proven to be helpful in general. But back to self-critique. This is, in and of itself a skill, no? Very often, I have seen people shy away from self-critique because their expectations are set too high, as in, they judge themselves too harshly. In the interest of further discussion, can you or geneusutwerk comment on how you've improved your skill of self-critique?
I literally just got off of a phone call with a prospective client. After the phone call I assessed what I did right and wrong. Is it a skill to self assess? Sure it is. But that skill begins with the simple action of doing. After you partake in something you wish to become better at, force yourself to reflect. Do it. I was happy with how this call went. Honestly, I don't think I would change anything. At this point the exercise becomes assessing why the call went well. Once you can determine positive behaviors/actions you can replicate them when the time comes again. -this may all seem "obvious", but most people don't do this and rely on chance, natural ability and dumb luck. I create my own luck. Gosh...I sound like Tony Robbins.
I'm going to be honest, this is not something that I am that good at, but perhaps thenewgreen can help. One thing I have been doing recently is working on is mindfulness which I think helps you to look at your self without being critical of your self.
I like to sing. So I sing a lot. And listen to a lot of singing. My advice is mainly a lot of what is being said. Explore it. Find your niche. Talk to people about it. Study the greats. When it comes down to it, though, realize who you are trying to impress. Do you want to be famous at it? Or are you more like me, and just enjoy doing whatever it is you want to do. When I sing, I like to sing a lot of different stuff, because sticking to one genre for too long bores me. I don't want to be a specialist at one thing. I want to be a well rounded singer, who can sing anything, even music I don't really like. When I sing it though, I put my own spin on it, if thats what I'm trying to do. Or I might sing it as close to the original as possible, because the original has impressed me. Then I'll sing it differently just to try it. I think its important to nail down what you want from your thing, and then figure out how to do it. You also have to realize that how you do it is up to you. Its supposed to be creative. Its supposed to be your own thing. Its an outlet, and you should use it in the way that makes you happy. Have a style. Be different.
Would you say that doing something "to be famous" or just "to have money" is a bad motivation to begin with?
10,000 Hours. For me, it's all about practice. And I'm a firm believer that you can become good at anything if you throw enough dedicated time at it. Lock someone in a room with a guitar for 10,000 hours and they'll come out being an expert. Would they learn faster if they had a good teacher? Or proper study techniques? Yes, but people learn differently and at different paces so it's hard to really pinpoint one solution that blankets everyone for "how to learn optimally". But there is that one constant for us all, time. Classes are good, lessons are good, reading about the subject is good, studying theory is good, but over all of that. Time spent doing it is what will always matter most.
Oh, I agree. Jimmy Smith comes to mind; apparently he was a fairly unremarkable pianist, but then he locked himself inside a warehouse with a B-3 Hammond for a year and essentially fathered Acid Jazz and set the bar for the use of the electric organ in the world of jazz. Anyway, can you think of how the 10,000 hours model has applied to how you've improved on your personal talents?
I'm just going to jump in and burst the bubble; the 10,000 hour rule is a myth. It's grounded in a good idea, which is that time and effort usually yield improvement, but the idea that anything can be mastered in 10k hours, or that conversely, with 10k hours you can master anything, is - at best - a theory. I do think that everyone has one or two 'skills' (or lack of skills, really) that they are probably not going to achieve excellence in, regardless of how much time and effort they put in.
Just to caveat what i said, my main thing with the "10,000 hours" mantra is that practice is important. I don't believe for a second that 10,000 hours is some magic number where people become an expert in something. To me it's that unattainable goal that just means "practice a lot, and you'll get better". It's the high level view of the theory that is important, not taking it literally. Of course it's not meant to be taken literally. At least, taking it literally wasn't what I intended to imply here, was just trying to make my point that practice and "doing" is the most important thing for me and many others. So I agree the theory is flawed, but it's never been a theory I've taken seriously. I just like the idea beyond the theory that it focuses on practice and doing.but the idea that anything can be mastered in 10k hours, or that conversely, with 10k hours you can master anything, is - at best - a theory.
That makes sense! I actually secretly hate Malcolm Gladwell and had recently been reading about how he propagated the 10k hour rule, as well his lack of any sort of evidence besides personal experience, for it, so that's why I came down a little harsh if it seemed I did. And also why I took you to mean it so literally, because Gladwell certainly seems to. Ugh.
That's true, a good family friend and I talked about this very thing. He's a seriously good guitar player and has been playing for about 50 years. While he really enjoys playing guitar, for the past 25 years he's been playing the fiddle too. However, he's nowhere near as good at the fiddle as he is at guitar and according to him, he's tried everything and he practices constantly. No matter what he tries, that's as good as he's going to get at the fiddle, according to him. I'm interested in what people's experiences are though, since there are times when dogged persistence has paid off. I'm also wondering if people have noticed the wall they've hit and taken the experience they've gained by not improving in one area and applied it successfully in another area.
Easily, the more I practice, the better I get. :) I juggle, and play guitar and piano. The more time I spend doing them, the better I get. Especially juggling, because it's pure repetition and motor skills. Whereas piano and guitar require learning new songs, progressions, and incorporate a few different tasks into the mix like technique and memorization. Juggling you pretty much just practice practice and then practice some more. It's 100% muscle memory and motor skills. EDIT: I should add, I've not practiced any of those things for anywhere near 10,000 hours obviously, it's just an expression. :) http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2012/08/14/malcolm-g.../can you think of how the 10,000 hours model has applied to how you've improved on your personal talents?
Nothing is better than immersion in what you're interested in. However, that can become very complicated if there are many things a person has to be immersed in. I personally feel as if I'm in a limbo between all the different thing I'm involved with (work, school, being a musician, being a boyfriend). It's very difficult to become better at any one of these because time and effort has to be spent on the others.
I took a ceramics class in high school and we had some time left at the end, so the teacher taught us all the fundamentals of good pencil drawing. After a maximum of ten hours spread over a couple of weeks spent messing with perspective and colors and whatnot, I was at least 300 times better and more confident with sketching. The difficulty curve gets steep eventually, I'm sure, but with drawing a tiny amount of instruction and practice was enough to where I was proud to show my drawings to other people.