How to Master Any Skill
Your success in life is based on your SKILLS. What can you do? Which skills do you want to master?
Write books? Create hilarious videos? Build houses? Transplant hearts?
The more valuable your skills are, the greater your success.
Basement Bob
Before Bob gets rich, he lives in his mom’s basement.
He’s broke and unhappy. He sees no path to success. But then he masters a valuable skill.
Click to watch a short slideshow about Bob’s journey.
10 Reasons to Master Skills
- You’re stuck in a job or career you dislike.
- You need more confidence, courage and personal power.
- You have a lot of potential, but can’t see how to use it.
- Even though you work hard, you never get ahead.
- You’re broke.
- You constantly worry about your future.
- You are not very proud of yourself.
- You pretend to know what you are doing.
- Your income is not increasing.
- You have goals, but see no way to reach them.
Fortunately, you can master any skill you want!
The first step is to pick the skills you wish to master.
85 Skills You Can Master
The example skills below include 20 life skills, 20 skills that pay enough for your basic living costs, 25 skills that pay enough to make you and your family comfortable, and 20 skills that make you rich.
20 Life Skills
These life skills bring success and happiness. Many of them are covered in TipsForSuccess articles. Combine these with work skills to earn the most money.
Study Skills
Communicating
Decision Making
Make People Happy
Counselling and Coaching Family and Friends
Persistence, Determination, Make Anything Go Right
Be Anything
Imagination
Control or or Influence Parts of Life
Personal Image
Present-time Focus
Personal Money Management
Figure Out How to Win Any Life Game
Build Support with People
Correctly Identify and Handle Enemies
Establish and Repair Relationships
Self Motivation
Self Respect, Self Love
Change Confusion into Order
English skills
20 Low-income Work Skills (earn $1500 to $3000 per month)
Restaurant Worker
Cleaning Services
Delivery Driver
Landscaping Worker
Assembly Line Worker
Warehouse Worker
Online Sales
Security Guard
Childcare
Laundry Services
Parking Lot Attendant
Telemarketer
Call Center
Taxi/Uber Driver
Garbage Collector
Home Health Aide
Doctor Assistant
Teacher’s Aide
Bartender
Receptionist
25 Middle-income Work Skills (earn between $3000 to $8000 per month)
Office Management
Website Creation
Video Creation
Artist, Musician, Actor
Sales
Customer Service
Tech Support
Financial Services, Accountant, Bookkeeping
Teaching and Tutoring
Counselling, Mediating and Coaching Clients
Writer, Instruction Manuals, Ads, Fiction, Non-fiction
Business Assistant
Healthcare Nurse, Assistant, Therapist
Healthcare Lab Technician
Government Work
Carpenter, Roofer, Plumber, Electrician
Restaurant Manager, Chef
Event Planner
Factory Machine Operator
Building Manager
Real Estate Agent
Truck Driver
Warehouse Worker
Store Clerk
Farm Manager
Insurance Agent
Importer/exporter
20 High-income Work Skills (earn $8,000 to millions per month)
Business Owner
Business Executive
Management Consultant
Software Programmer
Artificial Intelligence
High-tech Security
Software Creator, Video Game Creator, App Creator
Device Inventor
Financial Management
New Businesses Starter
Investments
Public Speaking
Negotiation
Medical, Dental
Law
Engineering
Advertising
College Professor
Influencer on Social Media
Being the Best in an Industry (sports, music, speaking, etc.)
What is the Skill of Your Dreams?
Motivate yourself with this exercise.
- Write down a skill you’d love to master. It can be a skill you want to improve or a new skill that would help you the most.
- Under this skill, write down who you will become as a master of this skill. BE this person right now.
- Once you master this skill, what will you DO? For example, get a promotion, start a new business or make progress toward a goal.
- List the benefits you will HAVE by mastering this skill. For example, better opportunities, loyal support from others, more income and so on.
- Put this where you will see it every day.
Why is Mastering a Skill So Difficult?
Can you study some material about a skill and quickly master it? For example, you read a book on how to create phone apps and then create an awesome phone app. Or you read how to get a promotion and then get a promotion.
If you love to study, mastering a skill is easy. If you hate to study, mastering a skill is impossible.
10 Reasons Why People Hate to Study
1. They Get Confused and Frustrated
The material they are studying makes no sense. If they do not clear up their confusion, they feel angry or even hate the subject, so they stop studying it completely. If they go back and clear up the confusion, they succeed.
2. Students Can’t See How Everything Fits Together
Students might understand what they read, but they don’t see how the pieces work together. For example, how to build a bridge by reading about it, but not going out to examine an actual bridge.
3. Memorizing Instead of Understanding
Students who memorize answers to pass tests usually forget the answers. They know that just passing tests might give them a diploma, but not the skill. When they get jobs based on their diplomas, they have to pretend they know what they are doing.
4. Students Can’t Think
When they try to study, their minds turn off and they space out. They get headaches. The harder they try to study, the worse they feel. No one knows why this happens so they tell them to just take breaks. Or even worse, they call it a mental disability.
5. Pushed Too Fast
Teachers (or bosses) sometimes move students through their material too quickly. They expect everyone should understand everything right away. This makes students miss understanding important facts and details they need for their skills.
6. They Are Too Slow
Some students hate study when everyone is faster than they are. Even though they make slow steady progress, they feel stupid or ashamed.
7. They Already Know it All
Some students hate to study if they believe they already know everything they need to know. While sometimes the problem is with the material or the class, more often the problem is with the students’ attitudes.
8. Bad Teaching
When students are criticized or punished for not understanding their material, they will certainly hate to study.
9. Not Challenged
Highly intelligent students go crazy if everything is too easy for them. They are so much faster than other students, they feel stopped and frustrated by slowing down. They learn more by reading encyclopedias at home!
10. Never Learned HOW to Study
Students are not taught effective methods to read and use their study material. As a result, they cannot learn the skills they need or want for successful living. When they learn the five steps for mastering a skill, they know how to learn anything they like. They LOVE to study!
Do You Hate to Study?
If so, try this exercise.
- Go through the 10 reasons above to see your reasons for disliking study.
- Close your eyes and imagine how fast and useful your education would have been without those problems.
- Now imagine never having those study problems again.
- Finally, imagine loving to study the skill of your dreams.
Take the five steps below and you learn how to master a skill. While these five steps take time and work to learn and use, they are simple, powerful and free.
Five Steps to Master Any Skill
These steps are based on discoveries made by L. Ron Hubbard.
Step #1: Pick the Right Material
After choosing a skill, then find the best books, videos or instructors.
If the material you study is WRONG, you will not master the skill. You waste time and money. You give up.
Even if you have no choice over the material you must study, it’s good to know which of the required material will actually help you master the skill. Give priority to that material.
Click to read “Step #1: Pick the Right Material.”
Step #2: Understand Every Word
To understand everything about a skill, you need to understand every book, video, manual, chart or lecture. And the only way to do this is to know the meaning of EVERY WORD in the material.
Unfortunately, some people say, “That’s impossible. No one can understand every word.” Yet all masters say, “You can and should understand everything about this skill. Every sentence and every word. It’s not hard to do.”
When you study this way, everything makes sense. It’s like tiny light bulbs light up in your mind as you study.
Click to read “Step #2″ Understand Every Word.”
Step #3: Connect the Ideas to Reality
If you study but don’t connect the ideas in your material to the real world, you can feel headaches, dizzy, bored and more.
You can eliminate these feelings, and enjoy studying more than ever before, by taking this important step.
Click to read “Step #3: Connect the Ideas to Reality.”
Step #4: Use the Best Runway Speed for You
Mastering a skill is like flying an airplane. To take off, the pilot needs to use the correct speed. If the speed is wrong, the plane crashes. If the speed is correct, the plane flies!
If you study at a speed that is too fast, you feel confused. If your speed is too slow, you may fail to master the skill.
When you study at a speed that works for you, you feel motivated. You love to study. You can master the skill.
Click to read “Step #4: Use the Best Runway Speed for You.”
Step #5: Practice
Remember when you learned how to ride a bike? At first, it was hard to balance and you probably fell a few times. But with practice, it became easy. Now, you can ride a bike without thinking.
Practicing is vital to mastering any skill. You need your mind and body to work perfectly together. You need to practice, practice and practice for enough hours to use your skill without thinking about it.
Then you become a master.
Fortunately, practicing a skill can be a lot of fun!
Click to read “Step #5: Practice.”
Learn More About the Five Steps
1. For more information on Step #1: “Pick the Right Material” and Step #5 “Practice,” click here.
2. For more information on Step #2: “Understand Every Word,” Step #3 “Connect the ideas to Reality” and Step #4 “Use the Best Runway Speed for You” click here for a free booklet and click here for a video and online course.
3. Learn about Applied Scholastics, a non-profit education organization that provides services and material for teachers, parents and students, based on L. Ron Hubbard’s study material.
4. Learn about The Delphian School, a private school that uses L. Ron Hubbard’s study material.
5. Learn about Applied Scholastics Online Academy, an online homeschool system for parents and students.