A body in motion stays in motion. The more time we spend learning skills, the more our focus turns into passion–and the quicker we arrive at mastery. Like an exponential curve, the more we fixate on developing a skill, the faster we move along that curve until we turn upward into the heights. That’s where both passion and mastery meet.
The first thing we need to do, if career skill mastery is our goal, is to find the careers that fit our personality types. To do this, we can take this free personality test to get our personality type. Say, for instance, we find we’re an INFJ, which stands for “introverted, intuitive, feeling, and judging.” We’d then look up career fits on Google by searching “INFJ careers,” and write the careers down on a spreadsheet.
After that, look up each career on a job search platform, such as indeed.com, to see the skills needed, the salary each career pays, and the education required and enter all these variables in the spreadsheet. And then we narrow down our list to one or two career paths to follow. After that, we might choose to pursue the education needed, according to the Indeed.com listings of education requirements for that career. And that’s how we embark on our skills-development journey.
When we devote great stretches of time to learning new skills, we stumble on increasingly helpful resources and better opportunities. And better opportunities, such as career advancements, breed more learning. Thus, the exponential curve leaps upward.
To gain skills, we can couple our skills-development sessions with everyday tasks. If we walk our hallways while watching educational clips on our smart phones, we might begin to associate skills-development with walking. Soon enough, we may no longer bear to walk distances without viewing courses. And vice versa. So, we end up getting fit while learning new skills.
Similarly, if we listen to audiobooks while driving to work, we may condition ourselves to listen to audiobooks whenever we enter a vehicle. If we listen to educational podcasts while cleaning, we may condition ourselves to do so whenever we lift a rag. A habit of learning builds on itself when we fit it into our routines, even when we fit it into mundane tasks, such as reaching for a book while in the washroom.
If you haven’t yet followed our ideal career path, no sweat. Just start following it today. Become the person we would’ve hoped to become. No age is too old; no path too lofty. As motivational speaker Earl Nightingale says, we can be on top of our game within five years. If that’s all it takes, why not start now?
