An Exercise in Commitment.
Like many others out there, I like to learn new things.
Learning skills is an exciting way to enrich our daily lives. Acquiring these tools gives us a new way to view and interact with the world around us, almost lengthening our lifespan through added interactions and possibilities.
The problem is that there are so many things to learn.
Dissemination of information has made it easier than ever to find guides, tips, and information on how to learn and develop the many ideas and skills we currently lack.
Unfortunately, the availability of this information can be problematic. Because the data is right at our fingertips, it becomes difficult to commit and focus to learning a few new things.
I have heard countless stories from friends who have attempted to take up a new hobby, only to ultimately stop and move to something else as soon as things got too difficult or involved.
Unfortunately, this isn’t productive at all. In fact, it has been a major source of frustration for me in the past few years.
I have always had a history of multitasking, for better or for worse. I find myself wanting to learn new skills, but having difficulty committing after the novelty of the new task wears off.
After many failures with just a handful of successes in skill acquisition, I have finally decided to do something to address my weakness. I have set a challenge for myself to achieve in the next six months.
I am also writing about this challenge on a public forum, to create some accountability for myself.
So what is the challenge?
Over the next six months, my goal is acquire the following six skills:
- Run a Four Minute Mile
- Learn to Unicycle (be able to unicycle for 2 km without any problems)
- Learn Spanish (be able to watch a full movie in Spanish and then recite the plot)
- Do a one-armed chin up and pull-up (be able to do 10 repetitions on each arm)
- Juggle (4 balls — juggle for 4 minutes without any mistakes)
- Play Harmonica (be comfortable enough with my skill to be able to play in front of a group of at least 30 people)
The timer officially starts on May 25th, 2017, and lasts until November 25th, 2017. For my project to be considered a success, I have to acquire each one of these skills by Nov. 25th.
I am also preventing myself from taking up any new major skills until these six are completed — the point of making this post public is to make me accountable to this.
In addition, I will be tracking my data and reflecting upon each skill, testing out different techniques and philosophies of skill acquisition to see what works best for me.
If you’re interested in following me on this journey, feel free to connect through social media, or send a message. Stay tuned for more posts in the near future!
Thanks for taking the time to read until the end! :)
