When it comes to improving at a craft, there are often plenty of peaks and valleys that occur. When you’re first starting out, you may suck completely at whatever it is. However, with enough hard work, you’ll reach a breakthrough where you begin to exhibit considerable skill in the craft. Eventually, though, you’ll start to “plateau”, where you find yourself pretty good, but not as good as you’d like. Here’s how to take that next step.
Tackling Discomfort
Here’s why it’s so easy for craftspeople to plateau in their work. Once you get into a routine, you establish a comfort zone of sorts, where it becomes really easy to practice the very thing you’re most comfortable at. This will be something you love most about the work. Eventually, though, you’re so good at that one thing, that it feels like there’s no where else for you to improve.
However, this is false, because there are plenty of areas for you to improve: the very areas you’ve been avoiding because of how uncomfortable they look. The only way for you to improve now is to tackle those uncomfortable spots and find ways to fall in love with them. Eventually, you’ll begin to create your new “obsession”, where this becomes the thing you practice every day.
If you work as hard as you can on practicing the things you’re less good at, you’ll be that much more of a master at your craft in no time!