How do I become an expert at something?

Practice makes a man perfect. Indeed.

But Practice also makes a man dull.

You practice hard, every day, pull out a few hours from your busy schedule to learn a skill, master a course and go for tuitions and spend your last bucks thinking it to be a bargain.

You use tons of brain energy, learn hard and practice AI tools, create content, code at work but your manager still shouts at you for errors. You want to learn, to be the best one at it but here you are standing speechless. You have to listen to the cuss words. All your hard work seems like years of trash.

What’s your fault?

That you keep doing it all on your own and there are no takers. Nobody looks at the flow. Nobody reads your work. While you keep trying one thing after another, loving the newness but leaving behind the mastery at Step I itself. Here, You begin to lose.

But then you restart no matter what. Look out for said errors by an expert. Address each one of them. Edit it. Correct it. Sense the bug and eliminate it.

Here, You win.

Wonder How?

Because here you improve. You listen to the feedback and then act upon it.

So, here’s the catch. Find someone who could differentiate the dust from the waffle.

Find someone picky who could show you your mistakes hard on your face. Be it an audience, your boss or your teacher. Let them.

You know how a cake is made with flour, sugar and chocolate. And if you forget the baking soda, it really not is the cake at all. If you whisk it less, you don’t get a good fluff; whisk it more, it’s ruined, you see.

What do you have to do?

Ignore your favourite caramel sauce and maintain the raw flour first. Amount. Time for whisking. Type of Whisker. Binding Agents. Nuts or Fruits?

Decide and work on it. Let the reviews keep pouring in. Find experts. Find its takers and ask them how it tastes. It also depends on you how you optimize for their taste. Very essential otherwise who will like it. Kids love sugar while adults repel from it. Optimize.

Further, keep grinding your nerves at the art.

Don’t skip it. Don't give up. Make it a part of your routine. And do it no matter what. Even if it feels like you have lost or you’re losing, keep at it. Take your outcome. Learn from your Experience first and then introspect. But don’t give up unless you find another thing to be passionate about.

The more you work at a painting. The more you learn about shades, the strokes, the shadows, twists and curves, the more advanced your techniques become. The more your personality and your thoughts align with your art.

That’s what you want. To become a scientist at your own art.

P.S. Hope it helped you in more ways than one. Do let me know what’s more that can make you an expert at literally anything!