How To Become Proficient At Anything 5x Faster Than Normal

I’ve had my Canon T6I for 8 days now. I have absolutely no real prior photography/photoshop skills.

5 days after the arrival of my new camera, I took these pictures and edited them. Keep reading to see how.

In a non-boastful way, it doesn’t look like these pictures were taken by someone with less than a week of experience, does it? No, they’re not the world’s best photos and I still have room for improvement. But they’re above beginner level.

What if I told you you could take pictures like this just days after picking up a camera, or you could paint a world-famous painting just days after picking up a brush, or you could play a song by Mozart shortly after sitting down at a piano for the first time?

You’d likely laugh and say “No Diana you’re wrong, I can’t do that.”

But you’d be wrong. You can become proficient at anything if you do the following things.

1. Spend a large amount of time a day on that thing. I’m not talking 30 minutes, I’m talking 2–4 hours. When I got my camera, I spent hours reading about the settings, talking with my photographer friends and getting lessons from them, and I even hopped on a 2.5 hour Skype call with my friend and his professional photographer friend, and they taught me how to use Adobe Lightroom. I spend hours every day learning.
2. Do free work. Constantly be getting experience and studying every aspect of the thing you wish to become proficient in. Free work is a great way to get publicity and real-life experience. I’ve got two free photoshoots scheduled this weekend so that I can gain more experience, both in taking photos and editing photos. Additionally, the people I’m shooting will share my photos and I’ll start to gain a following,

Do these two things and I can guarantee you’ll learn this art/skill/trait/whatever you’re trying to learn, much faster than normal. I’d even argue that you’d learn this art/skill/trait faster than if you sat in a class room listening to lectures about it.

Doing is the best way to learn.

Originally published at dianazitting.com on December 1, 2016.