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Repetition is the father of learning. I’ve heard lil Wayne say that in a song before, as well as many other widely successful performers, athletes, actors, etc.
Doing something repeatedly to the point where the action is second nature. But how to you apply consistent, strong-willed, repetition to a specific craft, or study in order to be successful?
In Skyrim depending on your gameplay style, the character you develop adapts and increases in skill in the specific actions you do, wanna be a thief? Well then you better get stealing and you better do it alot. Constant frustration in the breaking of lock picks is required to become an expert in lock-picking as well as constant repeated use of the bow to master the skill of archery.
Eventually you become a all-powerful, thief, mage, warrior 0r assassin through an investment of numerous hours of gameplay into Skyrim.
But.
How is this all that different from success in real life? In my opinion there isn’t.
When we were all born we all started out with a zero skill set in every craft, there’s no baby in the world that can simply pop out the womb doing calculus, knowing how to play basketball, or be a firefighter, if there is a baby that can trust me I would have seen it on youtube.
Through our different experiences in our progressive transformation from baby to child to teen to adult, we eventually make a choice (or in most cases inevitably forced by society) to pickup and master a specific skill to earn money and survive. Sometimes the skill learned is influence by socioeconomic status, family, hardships, or environment, we may master a skill to impress somebody or to quite simply eat for the night.
But with all the different influences put aside and we as humans are given a chance to master a specific skill of OUR choice, how to we ensure that we will be successful?
Do you want to dance, be a singer, be a motivational speaker, astronaut, football player, or just learn how to use the the computer better?
They say Lebron James training regiment is pretty brutal, practicing six hours six days a week. Most people don’t even practice the skill in their actual jobs that much, street fighter champion Daigo Umehara practices at the arcade 364 days out of the entire year, and the only reason why he doesn’t practice for that 1 last day is because his
family wants him home for new years!
Good God. That is dedication.
Now let’s put it in Skyrim gameplay terms if there was a basketball skill Lebron would have probably been a master basketball player probably with a 500 rating in basketball because he repeats the action soooooooo much, he probably has a rating of 12 in ironing clothes though, but through repetition he could be beast at that too.
Can you really be a beast at ironing clothes? hmmm nevermind….
Now look at your professor the only reason why he/she is “smart or intelligent” in the field of study is because that professor has pretty much dedicated their life to the study of that skill, they are constantly doing, researching, thinking, and conversing about that skill, they eat and breathe that skill, so its strongly likely that the professor has mastered it.
In today’s society the process of repetition of a skill is hindered, I say this because the society we live in today is so riddled with constant lucrative distractions that one cannot possibly consistently, successfully master a tedious skill that could take years to master.
Think of the things you are good at:
Checking facebook statuses Skill: 95
Memorizing your favorite channels Skill :200
Knowing the latest gossip about people Skill: 100
Master the skills required to get a promotion, degree or certification Skill: 33
Facebook, Jersey Shore, MTV, any reality show, video games, netflix, tivo, tumblr, foursquare, and angry birds; all these things have effectively hindered or have successfully stopped the progressing of our skill sets, people then tend to think that if they fail at learning something its because they’re stupid when that is not the case, if you can sit down and check Facebook status updates and constantly repeat the same action over and over for about 4 hours everyday until you memorize the action without fail….
Why can’t you spend the same amount of time to master a skill that actually can benefit you?
Always remember the only difference between you and a successful person is that they went through all of the different hardships, distractions, and obstacles along the way.
But never made an excuse, they stuck to it and repeated the skill until they where successful at it.
Now maybe it’s time you forgot how to use facebook and learned how to be the best person you can be in any skill you want.
peace out y’all.
