How to Become More Awesome in Just 30 Minutes a Day
LIVING HAPPY ROUNDUP
Back in 2019, we had this podcast episode all about what we want to learn how to do and also about competency, which I’ve been thinking a lot about lately in terms of writing and morning pages and art.
Here’s the link to the actual podcast if you’d rather listen to us being dorks.
This is what I wrote in 2019.
This guy Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book Outliers and in it he outlines his belief that if you practice something for 10,000 hours and do that in a deliberate way, then you’ll become a top performer.
Who are the outliers? They are the best and the brightest.
We don’t want you to freak out over that 10,000 hours bit because that’s like saying, “Hey Shaun, I know you can’t run more than 60 seconds right now, but this Friday you’re going to run for 93 minutes.”
Spoiler alert: Shaun ran for 93-minutes straight on that Friday. I did too.
Anyway, this guy named Danny Forest who writes on Medium breaks it down to something that feels a bit more doable. He says that he can learn soft skills in about eight hours and breaks it into working 30 minutes each day on those skills.
That seems a lot better than 10,000 hours, right?
There’s a difference between competence and brilliance, but that half-hour concentrated focus is how so many of us build our skills. Even dogs.
So, inspired by Mr. Forest, Shaun has three things he wants to learn:
Make movies on Adobe Premiere
Spanish
Stained glass stuff
How to be a better parent
And I also made a list:
Make movies on Adobe Premiere
Make felted paintings
How to self publish
How to draw
How to write travel stories
How to be Anthony Boudrain
Spanish
How to cook in the French style, but also to make kick-butt saltanas and samosas and all things in pockets, basically.
What do you want to learn? To do?
For writing, focusing on writing or reading about writing for a half hour a day is really an essential tip to becoming a better storyteller. You see that advice everywhere and you see other people countering that advice saying to ‘ignore all advice,’ which is also actually advice.
Yes, do your own thing and do what works for you. That should be obvious. But don’t forget that you can’t become a brilliant guitar player if you’ve never
BACK TO NOW
Shaun checked off the most important thing on his list, but he already was a great one. And me? I have three. But it was sort of fun to go back and see what it was that we wanted to do and what fell away.
A lot of the time, the writers that I work with can’t find the 30 minutes in their day to work on their writing. A lot of people feel blocked, guilty, bad, full of shame to take the time for themselves to go after the things they want. Some times those things are creative (like writing), sometimes they are self care (taking a walk), sometimes they are about professional goals.
But you have to take the time even if it’s five minutes or ten. Talking about your dreams and your goals and the life you want isn’t enough. You have to take the steps. You’ve got to value yourself to take the steps.
I really wish that I could have a magic wand (or something) and have people realize that they are important, that they matter, that their dreams matter, that they deserve kindness and empathy and the space that they need to become the people they want to be.
You do.
You deserve that.
