When was the last time you learned a completely new skill?
The last couple of weeks have been a good reminder for me of the challenges of learning a completely new skill. Last year I worked with 32West Ltd to produce a range of videos building on my rebrand to flockofcats. I was really happy with the videos, and they got an excellent response on LinkedIn.
However, most of the videos were around 3 minutes in duration. I’m aware that these days, that is quite long! There seems to be much more appetite for punchy, bite-sized content. So, I decided it would be good to take the footage and develop a set of shorter clips. I thought that this would be something I could do myself, so I’ve recently embarked on learning about video editing – and thought I’d share some of my reflections so far…
- Be clear about the purpose of the learning. Learning for its own sake can be positive, but I’ve certainly found it helpful to remind myself of the ‘why’ of learning this new skill.
- Being prepared to genuinely play, experiment and to make mistakes. I found myself trying to get my first attempt ‘right’, and then getting frustrated when unsurprisingly, this didn’t happen.
- Leaning into the discomfort of not knowing how to do something. If I’m honest, I’ve put off doing this for a while – I’ve found the idea of video editing a little bit daunting, even though I know millions of people do it!
- Acknowledge and celebrate small wins. Making progress on a bigger skill is often about micro-skills. Just being able to consistently cut footage in the right place took time, but practising this has been an important step in the right direction.
- Pay attention! There have been times when I’ve done something (good or bad!) and had no idea what I did, so was unable to either repeat it or avoid it.
- Don’t blame the technology when things are difficult! The software is just doing what it is told to do…
What would you add from your experience of learning new skills?
PS
A couple of acknowledgments –
James Higgins for recommending the Filmora platform.
Dan James for his groundwork in breaking some of the videos down.
PPS
Watch this space for the new video clips – once they are perfect of course!!
