Mastering Any Skill In Just 20 Hours
In this era of constant changes and development, those who upgrade themselves and learn quickly are the winners. If a person does not upgrade himself in this competitive world, he is destined for a catastrophic failure that is stagnation. Therefore, it is important to change, and the only way to change as a person is to learn and acquire skills that are relevant to one’s professional goals and aspirations. Learning a new skill might seem challenging, but here in this topic, I am discussing the proven techniques of learning almost any skill in just 20 hours.
First of all, find out what skill you want to learn, take your time, and find something that you are passionate about mastering irrespective of what your friends or colleagues are encouraging you do to. This phase is critical because if you pick up a skill you are not passionate about, you will find it difficult to master. So, give it some amount of time to discover what you are deeply passionate about and truly want to acquire. Finding out the skills that you need to learn is quite simple, all you have to do is question yourself about your future goals and your current situation. Above all, discover your passion and interests which can only be done through introspection and self-evaluation.
For example, now suppose you are an employee in an organization who is working at the lower management level, and your future goal is to get promoted to a leadership position as a Chief Executive Officer or the head of a department. So, what skills do you need to learn to get to that position, and more importantly who do you have to become as a person to achieve your professional goal? Now, in this stage, you have to conduct a SWOT Analysis on yourself, which is finding out your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities you have and threats that you have to be aware of and get ready to overcome them. This way you may come across that you have to acquire certain skills such as public speaking or any technical skills such as reading and interpreting financial statements. Therefore, you have found the skills that are in alignment with your professional goals and you need to learn those skills to achieve your professional goal.
Finally, after successfully discovering what skill to develop or learn, you are in the second phase of acquiring skills, which is consistently learning that specific skill daily for a certain amount of time. So how to do it practically?
How to Master a Skill in 20 Hours?
Practically speaking, suppose you want to learn Financial Statement Reading and Analysis, so what you need to do in the first place is to find the right resources that help you learn the basics of financial statements and how to read and analyze them such as books, online courses, or YouTube which is an amazing platform to learn anything without paying. After you pick up the right resources, then all you have to do is apply the stuff you have learned from the available resources daily for about 40 to 50 minutes religiously without missing it until you hit the 20 hours of practice. In this way, you will learn the respective skill or any other skill on the planet in 45 days or fewer. It is worth mentioning that in these 20 hours of practice, you will not become an expert, but you will surely learn it to the extent of solving your problems and becoming familiar with its fundamentals.
As Josh Kaufman, the author of the book, “The First 20 Hours” states in his book our objective in learning any skill in 20 hours is not to reach an expert-level performance, but we just need to be good enough in that specific skill. Because time is limited and overall becoming an expert level performer in any skill is taxing and requires a hell amount of time as based on Dr. K. Anders Ericsson’s research conducted at Florida State University what he calls the “10000-Hour Rule.” Based on his research to become an expert at anything or any skill, it takes an average of 10000 hours of rigorous practice. If divided these hours into years, one has to practice for 7 to 8 hours daily without any vacation or missing any day, it will roughly take four years to reach that level. But that will be quite challenging and impossible to achieve if you have a full-time job and a family to look after or a student who has his semester exams, research, or assignments to accomplish. So, the objective of the 20-hour rule is to become good at something, no need to become a Genius Book record winner.
Skills I Have Learned Through The 20-Hour Rule
1. Meditating Daily
2. Keyboard Typing
3. Reading Books
Meditation: it had been something I eagerly wanted to learn and get into the habit of doing daily and consistently, but I postponed it roughly for four years. After getting familiar with the 20-Hour Rule, I applied it and learned how to meditate in 45 days.
Keyboard Typing: though I knew how to type, I wanted to increase my typing speed. In this regard, I just allotted 35 to 40 minutes of daily practice and the result was I increased my typing speed from 25 WPM to 40 WPM which is a tremendous growth in just 45 days.
Reading Books: I had always been passionate about becoming an avid reader, but I had constantly failed to become one. Because I was just good at postponing and not seriously committed to what I wanted to do. The reason behind my failure to become a good reader was my inability to plan effectively and develop the skill and habit of reading books regularly and consistently. So, to become a skilled reader, I applied the 20-Hour Rule on reading books and acquiring this outstanding skill. Simply put, I made a daily schedule to read two books simultaneously each one for 40 minutes based on the timetable. So, one day I would read one book for 40 minutes, and the next day the other book. After finishing the first two, then would pick up another two books. I remained consistent in my timetable though at the beginning, reading a book for 40 minutes daily was challenging, however, I stayed consistent and tried my best to at least hit the first 20 hours. Wow! The result was astonishing as by the time I accomplished the first 20 hours; I had already finished 3 books which boosted my confidence and I had already instilled the habit of reading voraciously. Therefore, comparing the last year to the year 2024, there has been a tremendous change in my reading ability. Last year I finished reading four books, but in the year 2024, I have read seven books by the end of Feb so far, which I think is a significant change.
To conclude, all the skills I learned in 2024 are the magic of the 20-Hour Rule. Therefore, if you think acquiring a new skill or learning something you have always wanted to master is challenging, I bet you apply the 20-Hour Rule, and see the result. Don’t get me wrong when I say skills, it also includes developing a new habit as well. Because even developing a great habit that makes you successful and gets you closer to your goals can be considered a skill. In short, understanding the 20-Hour Rule and applying it in acquiring new skills and developing new and productive habits has revolutionized my new year (2024). I consider it a magic pill! You will only realize its magic once you understand it and apply it in your real life.
