How To Self-Teach Yourself a Skill

Throughout the year, you may find a skill or hobby that grabs your interest, which is great! Learning said skill can seem scary, but luckily, you have resources available to help you with that.  

Tips for Mastering a New Skill

Before continuing, it’s best you keep these few tips in mind as you reach mastery in a skill: 

1. Be humble and private. If you find yourself talking more about what you could do instead of what you are doing, then consider sharing less. 
2. Patience. Don’t expect results in days, weeks, or even months. Learning curves are different for everyone, but you’ll realize when you’re achieving mastery. 
3. Take breaks. The number one thing you should do when learning is avoid burning out as it could trap you in a cycle and may dishearten you throughout your journey. 

With that settled, let’s do some research. No matter what your skill may be, the internet has lots of tutorials for your disposal.  

Stuck? An easy way to find things is “[Your hobby] tutorial,” keep in mind, tutorials aren’t the most effective way to learn a skill, so it’s recommended that you instead begin by searching “How to learn [your hobby],” and explore from there. 

1: Consuming 

As you explore different types of media to learn more about your hobby, you achieve the first step in learning: consuming. Consumption comes in many ways: reading, watching, or trying. Specifically, we want to consume anything related to our hobby to form potential projects and a rough idea of what can be done as you master the skill. 

2: Practicing 

When practicing, you want to set aside at least 15 minutes twice a week for focused practice. The type of practice depends on the hobby, but while researching, it’s best that you find something that allows you to learn the fundamentals and assign yourself tasks that challenge those fundamentals and build upon them. 

Always remember to start at your skill level. We want to avoid discouragement as much as we can, and trying to tackle professional problems at a beginner level does more harm than good. 

Self-teaching can be a fun thing to do if you’re doing it effectively, and sometimes, you may find yourself stuck even when you consume and practice at amazing levels. 

3: Problem Solving

If you’re ever in a situation where you think you’re stuck, take a deep breath, remind yourself of the end goal, and go back to the basics. If you need more assistance: 

1. Try a different form of media. Have you been learning everything from videos? Try reading forums or books instead. 
2. Failure is inevitable, so learn from it. Anytime you fail at something, figure out what you did wrong and prevent it from happening again. This helps you in the long run and can even help solve problems while keeping a positive mindset. 
3.  Attempt different scale projects. Incorporating multiple skills into one project can allow you to test your ability to intertwine multiple topics. If you get stuck, remember step two and keep problem solving. 

Still stuck? 

Try asking a librarian, they can help you get started finding online resources that fit your needs! If you still need help, try:

• Creativebug, opens a new window: For many things arts and crafts.
• hoopla, opens a new window: For ebooks, movies, or music.
• Resource Hub: Good for looking for resources made for your hobby.