The Making of An Expert
Well, let us adopt the saying “No one is born a thief, but life makes them so”, to gently modify it to suit our purpose, “no one born an expert, life makes them so”. It takes much more than hard work and determination to become an expert in a field. It takes aid from devoted teachers, great amount of support from the family, and a quality time and energy spend in continuous practice.
Echoing Thomas Alva Edison’s quote, “Genius is 1%inspiration and 99% perspiration.” :
When the goal is to become an expert in a field, no bother should be given to the sacrifices made or the hard paths traversed. Concern bout the self can never help anyone achieve anything hence the best option is to lose yourself in your struggle and to become a part of that strife. Endless struggles and continuous stretch of self-assessment and self-correction claims the life of a person determined to become an expert.
So, what is it that you consider to be expertise? Mere knowledge in a field can never be explained as expertise. It is more of a talent or a skill that has been developed overtime. Experience and hard work plays a good factor. But, in effective words, expertise cannot be claimed by oneself. It is an honor bestowed on us by others. Individual accounts of expertise can never be relied upon and hence it is always best to go with the general idea of the person. This takes not any kind of prejudices, but actual demonstrations of the talent or the skill. The performance of an expert comprises not just the knowledge concerning the field, but also a superior quality performance is expected to be delivered by an expert. One’s expertise in a field is always a measurable entity as the quantum of knowledge reveals.
When you are on the way to preparing yourself to become an expert in a concerned field, the first thing that should be included in your routine is a quality time spend in practice. This practice is to focus on areas you are weak and to gradually develop in you all the qualities that is to be absolute necessity to become an expert in the field. Improving our skills, focusing on improving the range of our performance, and negating any areas of below average performance is another necessity.
The words by Sam Snead ( Golfing Champion) is well adoptable at this point of the article: “It is only human nature to want to practice what you can already do well, since it is a hell of a lot less work and a hell of a lot more fun.”
The most important thing to be remembered when you are on the run to be an expert is that it takes time, a lot of time. Years put into practice, years of exploration, correction, outstanding performance, earning a reputation, all this can never happen in a day. It takes years; no amount of age is short to become an expert.
The next measure into becoming an expert is to have someone supervise you, to guide you and to correct you on a strict basis. One person may not be able to help you with everything connected to your field; in that case resorting to more guides will not be a bad idea. Expert coaches help accelerate the learning process. They may be harsh at times, but pricking remarks and ruthless criticism is the only thing that can mould out a better you, so accept them seriously. Self evaluation is always a good option, but the knowledge that you are never perfect will be the only things that will keep you going.