The 3 Traits You Need Before Learning a New Skill
Tags: career, ux, html, css
Published: 2020-01-06 17:24:30

I was going to make this post about self-taught coders but realized that the three traits I’m talking about will be relevant whether you’re learning to code, UX Design, or even something unrelated to tech. 

The fact of the matter is simple, learning any new skill is a long and difficult process. You’ll face hardships, excitement, and accomplishment. But the barrage of emotions is what makes this task a challenge. The three traits I am about to dive into will help you on your journey and will help you reach your end goal. 

Regardless of your industry, if you focus on these things you will see improvement in many areas of your life.

<h2>Resilience</h2>

I’m starting with resilience because if you don’t have it, you might as well not start learning anything in the first place. Teaching yourself, going to a Bootcamp, or even getting a degree is not a smooth process. Whichever path you are on you will face hardships, setbacks, roadblocks, and anything else you can think of. 

Resilience is defined as the following:

<blockquote><strong>The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.</strong></blockquote>

If that sentence does describe the journey to reaching your goals, then nothing will. Anything that involves a long process, patience, and time requires resilience with that. You will face frustrations not making process in your learning, or find difficult areas in your industry or class. 

It is not the difficulties you face that define you, but rather, <strong>how you respond to the difficulties that are bound to come.</strong> Resilience is the ability to push through the sludge, to put your head down and grind.

When things get tough you have two choices, run from your goals and quit, or put your head down and grind. Resilience lives in one of these options and I think we know which one.

<h2>Focus</h2>

The next important trait to have when going through the learning process is focus. Focus is defined as <strong>the center of interest or attention.</strong> Focus and resilience go together hand in hand, to be resilient, you need to be focused, and to be focused you need to be resilient. 

Finding focus is not easy in the cluttered age we live in. Tune out distractions, put on headphones, or do whatever works for you. Find that quiet place & just start. 

You’ll face plenty of difficulties when trying to learn something, and even more when trying to focus. But when you can sit down for an hour, or two, or even just 30 minutes and focus on making progress, you’ll see the returns. 

Use your resilience to get and stay focused, then don’t look back.

<h2>Organization</h2>

When beginning a long and drawn-out process where you won’t see the rewards for your hard work right away takes many skills. But without organization, odds are you won’t stick with your journey. 

I mean organization in the way of planning your journey. Imagine going to a Bootcamp or college class where the teacher has no idea what topics they’re starting with, or are going to cover in the class. Most likely, you wouldn’t go to that Bootcamp because it is missing organization.

This is the same for teaching yourself, why would you stick with a plan if you have no real plan?

You need to write out your plan, with dates for completion of certain steps, and an end date where you hope to achieve your goal. Layout your steps, in order, and start on step 1. 

Don’t worry if you add, or remove steps as you go, but if you are generally following a written plan, or <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/markmurphy/2018/04/15/neuroscience-explains-why-you-need-to-write-down-your-goals-if-you-actually-want-to-achieve-them/#7ec25b077905">goal</a>, you are much more likely to achieve your desired end result. 

Layout your steps, milestones, and end goals. Organize what resources you are going to be needing and using to learn whatever skill you are starting, and then <strong>start.</strong>

<h2>Recap</h2>

All three traits are equally important, and it depends on your personality type for which ones you’ll need to put the most effort into. 

Resilience is the ability to push through the hardships and setbacks.

Focus is the ability to ignore the noise and remove distractions.

Organization is the ability to plan and lay out the process you need to achieve your goal.

There are many more traits that could be helpful in the journey of learning something new, but I chose these three because of how relevant they have been for my own journey. 

To close, above all, just believe in yourself and your ability to learn and achieve something. <strong>You can do whatever you set your mind to.</strong>