All we want is to be super successful in our lives and get mastery over the things we do. Means we want to be recognised in the area of our work. We do lot of things, but there are few things which we do with most of our energy and with passion, means those few things are most close to our hearts and we enjoy doing them.

So, it comes down to getting perfect in those particular things. So, how do you go from having zero skill to mastering your craft? It’s not just about putting in the hours. It’s about the right kind of practice and monitoring your progress along the way. It turns out any skill can be gained quickly through practice and progressive mastery.

Here are the 10 steps to mastering your craft.

1. Determine the Skill You Want to Master: Narrow your focus. You can get mastery over everything, so carefully choose the skills you want to get mastery on and it should be what makes you interested in with all your heart.
2. Set Specific Stretch Goals: You cannot master any craft or skill in a day or two, it takes time to get mastery over any skill. So, it is important to set specific goals in your journey of mastering the skill. For example, if you want to write a book, you can decide to finish the first chapter of the book in two weeks and then the next chapter in the third week and the complete book in one month. Also, keep monitoring your progress, so that you know when you want to dedicate more time to do that.
3. Attach Emotion to Your Journey: Always keep reminding yourself why it is important to master that skill you have chosen, and in turn, allow yourself to get frustrated and fired up to improve.
4. Identify the Success Formula and then Master it: For succeeding in any skill there is a formula not necessarily one that has been already used by the other people, you can devise your own formula for success. Crack that formula and then you are done, all you need is to practice it rigorously until you get mastery over it.
5. Visualize What Failure Would Look Like: When you start to visualize what would happen when you utterly fail, then you will automatically find a way to success. Because, all you want to get is success and not face the failure at any cost.
6. Challenge Yourself: You should challenge yourself every day, break the challenges in some milestones and then work on to meet your challenges and win them all. For example, if you want to participate in a cycle race of 15 miles, then challenge yourself to ride your cycle for first five miles in eight minutes and so on.
7. Measure Your Progress and Get Outside Feedback: After every practice, start documenting your experience, what you liked and what you didn’t. Also, ask people to give their feedback on your work, which will give you real insights into the areas you need to further work on or improve.
8. Teach Others: The best way to master anything is to teach it to someone else, because when you start teaching it to someone you will prepare it very well, also when they will ask you questions you will try finding them.

How can that be? You are the master of this skill, after all? Suddenly you realize we all have to keep learning and adapting to achieve mastery on a skill or art an ongoing basis. Teaching is the crucial last step that will ensure you achieve and maintain mastery of the skill or the art you are practicing.

Also published on Medium.