How to master a skill

By Engr. Carlos V. Cornejo

Ed Mylett, an inspirational speaker and an accomplished businessman in the U.S. calls this the three steps to mastery.  It can be any skill such as playing a musical instrument, learning how to swim, solving math problems, giving a speech, starting a new job, etc.  Ed says you have to go through all the three stages if you want to master any skill. You can’t cheat the system.   The three stages are awkward, mechanical and natural.

The Awkward Stage

This is the stage where you feel strange trying out something new.  This is also the stage where most people quit because they could not adjust to the awkward feeling.  Ed says in his first job as a working student, he felt awkward trying to know the people in his workplace (a restaurant), taking orders, greeting customers.  His job was simply to clean up the table, and deliver the chips and salsa and yet he says he felt overwhelmed because he is an introvert.  Introverts have a big challenge of dealing with people, especially if they are strangers.

If you are learning how to swim you feel awkward with the different arm and feet exercises.  Normally in learning how to swim, you don’t go directly to the different strokes of freestyle, breast stroke, etc. but you need to do some feet exercises first of paddling, extending your arms while paddling or just getting the feel of how to float.  The key to moving from the awkward to the mechanical stage is repetition and awareness.  In swimming just repeat those strokes and be aware if you are doing it the right way or not.  If your coach corrects you, then you will have to obey him because nobody becomes a master of a skill doing it the wrong way.  With those constant repetition, correction and patience in no time you will move to the mechanical stage.

Usually, people quit this awkward stage because they don’t seem to see any progress.  But Ed says, there is actually progress, many just don’t see it because it’s called “invisible progress”.  Your repetition and awareness did have some effects on your skill but not good enough to be seen or felt, but you are actually getting close.  And those who quit were actually very close to having that visible progress but they just did not have the patience, and persistence.

Mechanical Stage

In the mechanical stage you already see some progress in your skill.  What is needed is just more repetitions and more course corrections.  If you are in business, it would be more calls to customers, more emails, more follow-ups, etc. until you will gain some considerable profits that could propel you to sustain your business, and leverage you to tremendous profits and expansion of your business which is the natural stage.

In swimming the mechanical stage would make you move through the water already with different strokes but not yet gracefully or smoothly.  You will have just to do more reps (short for repetitions). And how many repetitions does it have to take to move from awkward, or from mechanical to natural?  It will be different for each individual, for some it takes a hundred for some three hundred, but the number should not matter.  The goal should be to acquire the skill and then master it.  We should have the perseverance of a mother trying to make her baby walk.  Does a mother ask how many baby steps should her baby take to practice walking before she quits? No!  Of course not.  The answer is to this question if you are to ask a mother is “until the baby walks!”  In other words, no quitting and no giving up until the goal is accomplished.

Natural Stage

This is where you reap the fruits of your labor.  You execute the skill almost automatically, without much thinking and you just let your instincts take over.  Instincts that is a product of many repetitions.  Although you might be a natural already as they would call it with your skill, but you may want to be great and even world class, or be at the top 5% on that particular skill, you should listen to what the late basketball legend Kobe Bryant’s (my idol) had to say. “If you really want to be great at something, you have to truly care about it.  If you want to be great in a particular area, you have to obsess over it.  A lot of people say they want to be great, but they are not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve greatness.  They have other concerns, whether important or not, and they spread themselves out (get busy with other things), and that’s totally fine.  After all, greatness is not for everybody.” (Kobe Bean Bryant)