Doing Is the Shortest Path to Learning and Acquiring New Skills.

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?? For most people, acquiring new skills takes ages unless forced to. Understandably, change is painful but necessary for continuity. ?

Today’s work environment makes your once proud and hard earned skill set irrelevant at a speed of light. Everything evolves at high speed. Career, business or product life cycle has become shorter and shorter.? While the need for more new skill sets increases.?

The change within or outside your environment erodes your ability to do your job faster than you anticipated. Failed to catch up, your job is on the line. Insecurity builds up. Stress seizes your moments. Your dream shatters.

In bad times, businesses reduce costs as thin as they survive a company. And bad times happen everywhere, everyday. In bad times, you are the target cost. Who do you think executives save first, your job or the company they run? ?Less skilled, you are the primary target for dismissal.

?I am certain that you do not want to catch yourself in this dump scenario.

?Unless you fool yourself, there is no way you, willingly, stress yourself in all circumstances.?

Do you know why stress happens??

Stress is a hard feeling you feel when you do not do your work ahead of time. Jeff Bezos says, “Stress doesn't come from hard work, stress primarily comes from not taking action over something that you can have some control over.”

?I fully buy Jeff’s honest statement. ?

?? So, what should you do to escape those unfortunate circumstances?

?Reading books and attending courses are the normal go to options to adapt to the underlying changes. So do inspirational environments.

The problem with reading books and attending courses is the fact that most people never commit to the end. ?

?Especially, when it is free of charge.

• You read books but never reflect on core messages.
• Registered for courses but never reached the final lines or did the exercises.

Take YouTube, full of resources, but only few take it seriously.        

As much as they are important, your phones are distractions too, usually, working against your best intentions. You are constantly swiping in an entertainment mode. Entertainment forever, if you want to call it that way.?

Intentional learning has become so fundamental that you cannot ignore it.

?? So, how to do it?

There is a simpler, straightforward and guaranteed option to learn and acquire new skills faster.?

Doing. Yes, doing. More so experimenting at low scale.

?? Let me explain with a real story.?

I used to have a former colleague whose hand was never without a book. You start a discussion with him on any topic, it never ends. He had all the logic and reasoning of what is right and wrong, do’s and don'ts.?

Comes to his office work, everybody is in a fight with him. He talks but never delivers, everyone claims. Everyone, managers particularly, is shy of giving him the slightest trust.

I used to wonder why because he is a good guy. Later, somehow, I guess, I found the reason. He reads books one after the other, but he never practiced any of the lessons he read. He taught his mind to be too imaginary and hypothetical. No skill of delivering and disappointing every encounter.

?? Do you encounter people with such behavior?

Most people do not read enough and relevant books. And those who read never practice what they read.??

Watching out the ‘uneducated’ being successful in real life, the common saying in town goes, ‘’the educated are fearful’’. ?The truth (in my opinion) is that ‘’the uneducated’’ learns from doing or practice, and it is real.

You may be a consultant analyzing and advising on legal, policy, regulatory, and market rules. But, usually, reality is far from the papers.

Importantly, you are not the one walking the talk.

?? You know who does?

The person (business) you are advising. He/she has both realities. The paper, and real life. So does the learning for real.?

Oftentimes, reality is different from the papers. Start a business and you will discover it yourself.??

There happens to be a wealth of information out there. How to succeed in your career; how to start and run a successful business, you name it.

Unless you do it yourself, you cannot internalize it. You do not feel if you really need the information in the first place. And you can't commit enough.

As you start doing something, you face the real challenges head on and you start to wonder for real solutions. You read or hear something; you no longer take it lightly and start to implement it in a way that matters to what you are doing.? The more you do it, you reinforce your learning, build up new skills and solve new challenges. In fact, you secure your spot.

I do know so many people who started one business and ended up in a completely another business because of the hard realities. What is good, they learned the hard way, and course adjusted.

Having evolving skill sets is a no brainer. It is a guarantee in the workplace, and in business. In today’s work environment, the amount and frequency of change has become overwhelming. Organizations deliberately retain or seek people who are adaptable to new environments. By learning and acquiring new skills in time, you send a clear message that you are adaptable to changes.

?? How do you do it?

By doing.

Do not get me wrong. I am not saying that reading books and taking courses are a waste of time. In fact, doing is not a replacement.

I am rather suggesting that practice is more golden when it comes to learning and acquiring new skills faster.

?? Here is where to start.?

Show up today and start a podcast, YouTube channel, Tiktok video or writing. You will witness your progress within a few months time yourself. Do not worry if you do not have the end in mind as you begin. It will come as you move ahead.

There is nothing to lose. Do it at a low cost and scale

If you want to be ambitious, start a business today. Even if it is a pseudo one.

?Else...

Assume a senior role from where you are. Put yourself in the shoes of executives, and practice to make tough decisions.

Do it well ahead of time. You are born to learn. One at a time. Start doing something today.

Have you heard about the parallel ministries from one of the political parties (Ethiopia)? The joke aside, do it just like that.

Surprisingly, doing it is not as difficult as you think. It is only as hard as your own imagination. Break the silence and start doing something today.

?? Here is another real case example.

When I was in College, we used to have laboratory sessions for physics, biology, chemistry, and later computer and technical workshops.

All used to have either simple fulfillment requirements ( no grades) or low grades while the theoretical courses had very high grades.

As soon as I entered the workforce, I found the labs and workshops rather more useful. In real life, it is not the theoretical knowledge that makes a difference but the amount of sweets you pour into it.

Out of the 5 years stay in college, I would rather recall the two months community practice. The community practice was a way to translate theory into actual problem solving exercises, and it lasts.

?Tony Robbins says, ‘In truth, the greatest gift that extraordinarily successful people have over the average person is their ability to get themselves to take ‘massive’ action ’’ - - -( an equivalent of ‘doing’.)

You read an inspiring book. You watch a mesmerizing video. Both are gone little by little, and sooner. The practice (‘doing’ ) takes you somewhere, instead.

?Begin doing something today.

? If you happen to be in high school, college or early in your career, download the free Amharic eBook to guide your job search preparation.?

? In my next write up, I will share with you a practical case (how I ended up learning and acquiring a skill of building a website from scratch). I mean before AI. ?

? I write on ShowingUp with a goal of sharing my career growth and personal development experiences, particularly to the youth behind me.

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I talk and write about #jobs, #careergrowth, #personaldevelopment #digitalization #experiencesharing

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