Becoming An Expert

Becoming an expert at anything takes time.

Some say it takes 10,000 hours. That's 8 hours a day for 5 years with the weekends off.

Why would you want the weekend off from something you love doing?

Anyway, I think becoming an expert takes more like 10 years. What kind of expert do you think you realistically could be in 5 years?

Not much methinks.

5 years will just about get you through an apprenticeship. That's day 1 – now the work starts.

We've got to put in another 5 years in order to be considered and expert, then we have another 10 to become a master.

That means we've got to practice the art of whatever it is we've chosen to do, consistently, every day until it becomes first nature.

But there's a big problem here. Too many of us aren't doing what we love, instead we choose to do things that pay us a wage.

No wonder so many of us never make it.

The Creative's Greatest Challenge To Becoming An Expert

There are many challenges to creativity, to becoming an expert.

Probably the greatest is the momentum of the world around us. It has been building for a very long time, and it is very convincing.

Not least because everyone we know is part of it and they want nothing more than for us to be a part of it too. All of them well meaning of course.

If we try to be a part of it, to keep the onlookers happy, then our art will be split in two. So we've got to enter our own world and make things from there.

It's imperative we do so actually.

We have a natural draw towards making things just for the sake of it, and at the same time there is this draw to being a part of the world and all that goes with that.

People in the world say that we must follow the rules, get in line, don't drift outside the protective circle of society.

Go to school they say, study hard, get a job just like everyone else, be safe. They say it’s dangerous to follow your heart, you’ll be left alone, cast out.

So where do we go with all this then?

Creativity Doesn't Have To Hard

We can get on the road to expertise and mastery by simply following our heart, however I understand not as straightforward as that.

I left school and started an apprenticeship when I was 15, and for a long time I enjoyed the work although it wasn't my preference.

Even so I worked at it conscientiously and I found out I was good at it. But on reflection I think that it was not so much a talent, but rather an attitude that made me good.

The standard of workmanship was important to me, I gave a shit about the results of what I made, and still do.

Now that wasn't for anyone else's sake, it was for my own. I was compelled to make good shit. No matter what, I'd give my total attention to what I was doing.

These days what I'm doing has become a little more important. I suppose I've grown up just a tad and want a bit more for myself, consciously at least.

So doing something that's not your art doesn't have to be a trial or an endurance. I believe that what ever we happen to find ourselves doing for a living we can embrace it.

We can turn it to our advantage.

Yeah sure, we might fall into a career by default or obligation but it doesn't have to be a battle to get through it or get free from it.

It's a state of mind thing.

I think the more we get at peace with things the quicker circumstances change towards what we want.