Buckle Up: Everything is a Skill Issue
Till now I still dread the term – Buckle up because I have always been a creative at heart.
I loved the thought of creating something from scratch, putting it up for display, people come to buy what I create and I don’t have to worry about money.
Naturally, as a child I learnt to draw cartoon characters and write essays and short stories. As I got older, I studied things like graphic design, content writing and photography.
Although I learned a lot from these things, they never really helped me financially.
More specifically, I wanted to do my own thing but was unable to monetize my creativity.
It’s not because I was not skilled enough, it’s because I didn’t stack other skills that would allow me to make money and experience freedom. I was just a man-child who wanted to watch anime and read books for a living while expecting that my money problems solved themselves miraculously.
I will talk about my full story in a subsequent article, but for now, just know that this approach did not work out.
I had to swallow a pride and get a job.
But there is a profound lesson I learned which is still valuable today:
Lesson: Anything and everything can be learned.
Buckle Up: Everything is a Skill Issue
Everything is a skill Issue
Buckle up is often used as an interjection or exclamation to infer that an event is about to be exciting, unexpected, dangerous or even troubling. In real time, it simply meant – Things are about to get serious.
As time goes on, I am realizing that a person’s life changes when they realize everything is a skill.
The goal you currently strive for is just a couple of skills you must learn and build.
Discipline is a skill.
Patience is a skill.
Being funny is a skill.
Socializing is a skill.
Making Money is a skill.
Saving money is a skill.
Being good at anything is a skill.
Everything now depends on your skillset.
What are Skills?
A skill is your ability to do something well.
I love how wild_stoic puts it – “Skills are not magical words that you either do or don’t have. They are things that you build through repetition.” This makes it simple to understand because repetition leads to Mastery.
And mastery leads to the fulfillment of your goal.
How to Turn Anything to a Skill You Can Master
This framework is in 3 steps:
Step 1: Break it into Chunks and Daily Tasks:
Chunking is a phenomenon where a task is split into smaller units for easy doing.
To begin chunking, ask yourself:
- What is the smallest single element of this skill that I can master?
- What other chunks link to that chunk?
Practice one chunk by itself until you’ve mastered it. Then connect more chunks, one by one, exactly as you would combine letters to form a word. Then combine those chunks into still bigger chunks. And so on.
Go a step further by creating a daily action.
Which daily task would you need to complete in order to make noticeable, progressive progress in your selected skill?
Step 2: Execute with 30 for 30 or with Deep Work.
I learned this execution step from Sahil Bloom (He is a great guy you can check out as well):
a. 30-for-30: Do the daily task for 30 minutes per day for 30 straight days. 30 days is meaningful enough as a commitment that you can’t be half-in, but 30 minutes is short enough that you can convince yourself to take it on. 900 minutes of effort in a single month is enough to create tangible progress that will keep you pushing forward. This is my favored approach for getting started on any new area of progress.
b. Deep Work: Deep work means carving out 1-2 blocks of time per day when you will enter a deeply focused state to make progress against your area of choice. These blocks are generally 1-2 hours for most people and should be completed without distraction. This is the favored strategy for big professional goals.
Sahil also recommends that you start with 30-for-30 and then transition to Deep Work after a few months if you feel motivated and energized to go harder.
Step 3: Teach Others What You are Learning.
The ultimate test of your knowledge is your capacity to transfer it to another.
You can use the Feynman Technique to buckle up when seeing everything as a skill issue. The Feynman Technique is a simple and popular way of teaching others while developing mastery over your newly acquired skill. There are four steps to his method.
- Teach your skill in its simplest form.
- Identify gaps in your explanation. Go back to the source material to better understand it.
- Organize and simplify your information.
- Transmit and Transfer till the other person understands it.
But remember, do before you teach or share with others.
It Only Gets Better From Here On
When you see things from this angle, I strongly believe you can do anything you want if you practice it enough. You no longer have an excuse not to do anything.
Infact, you can do everything.
I hope this makes sense. Again, buckle up and see everything as a skill issue.
