Can anyone acquire a general skill if they want to? I'm not talking about one in a generation skills like hitting 60 Home Runs in a season. I'm thinking something more like drawing a straight line or something similar.
The reason I ask is that there's a guy at my workplace that seems to do everything well. I work in a landscaping company and we do things like planting flowers/trees, raking soil and putting down new grass. There are skills associated with each job, and we're expected to do our jobs fast and efficiently. It's not a particularly difficult job but I just seem to have problems picking up the skills quick enough.
The other part of my question is how do you go about picking up a skill? What do you have to do besides practice? And what does practice entail exactly?
Barring a very small number of exceptions, yes, everyone should be able to pick up skills like the ones you are talking about. It may take some longer than others, but if you watch what someone with the skill does and try to emulate it you will notice that every time you do it you get a little faster/better at it.
And practice entails just doing it over and over again, not much else I can think of for practice of labor skills.
Yes, if you practice something enough you will eventually become skillful in that. Besides practice you need to reflect and decide if you are practicing in a productive manner. Getting training from other more skillful people is always a plus, too.
How much practice one requires to become skillful is different for every person, as some people simply have an easier time learning certain concepts than others. And of course there's the exceptionally gifted people pick up almost any new skill relatively easily.
How experienced is the guy who does everything well? I'd be willing to bet he has many years under his belt.
I remember the first time I picked the range at my old job it took me 4 hours to get half of the range picked...I went home thinking the job was literally impossible. The next day I casually asked one of the guys about how it was done, and the combination of his tips plus my being slightly more familiar with the machinery I was working with made me able to pick the full range, including everything I hadn't finished the day before, in the same 4 hours.
Also, a hummingbird just flew into the room I am in...it was awesome.
Edit: Since I just threw around a little golf slang let me explain it. "Picking the Range" is the act of driving around in that golf-cart with a metal cage around it that picks up golf balls on the driving range. (and then washing the balls and loading them back into the dispenser)
haha lemon, you worked as a driving range target. : D
to op: yes, all people can acquire a skill. some will 'get there' faster than others, based on a million factors. a tiny bit of them biological.
practice in this context can entail repeating a process. hoping that in time your neural (muscular) memory will do the job for you. you know the saying - doing without thinking.
plus, if you imagine (conceive in your cognitive theater) the physical movements, the order etc. your mirror neurons will practice even though you are sitting on your sofa. relaxing, sleeping and doing nothing can also be beneficial for progression. you can compare it to defragmenting your HD.
Yes, I think anyone can acquire a reasonable skill.
For example, I juggle. Sometimes people see me and want to try, and if they can't, they say something about how they are not talented in that way. But I did not pick it up in one session, it took a long period of practice, and someone who helped me. I was even worse than most when I started. Practice helps.
On May 24 2011 09:51 Darclite wrote: Yes, I think anyone can acquire a reasonable skill.
For example, I juggle. Sometimes people see me and want to try, and if they can't, they say something about how they are not talented in that way. But I did not pick it up in one session, it took a long period of practice, and someone who helped me. I was even worse than most when I started. Practice helps.
Kinda like Starcraft.
No doubt. I can't draw for diddly, and my handwriting is utterly atrocious (the scratches of ancient-Egyptian chickens are more decipherable). But, I'm an engineer and those are skills I haven't needed to develop. If I took the time to practice, practice and practice some more, I'm sure I'd feel much better in my ability to do them.
I live next to DigiPen and for a while wanted to become a professional artist. I've talked with and interacted with a lot of great students and professional artists, and let me tell you, drawing a straight line is fucking hard. Go talk to some architects about that one, they're usually the ones that figure out how to do that shit.
Oh and drawing a circle. Who the fuck can draw a circle :/
I am studying architecture, drawing a perfect circle with just a writing utensil is impossible. I remember my calculus professor saying that whoever can draw a perfect circle is insane or something a long those lines.
On May 24 2011 08:20 buickskylark wrote: Can anyone acquire a general skill if they want to? I'm not talking about one in a generation skills like hitting 60 Home Runs in a season. I'm thinking something more like drawing a straight line or something similar.
If you're not talking about skills that you don't think you can acquire but only about skills that you think you do can acquire. Than why are you even asking if you can acquire if you already decided?
Depends on how proficient you want the person to be in such a skill and how much natural talent the person has. I'm sure 99.9999999% of people born can acquire the skill of speaking a language if they try hard enough, but I'm just as sure that 0% of the people in the world can ever play tennis like Roger Federer no matter how much they practice.
Different people have different abilities and limitations. Many skills can be acquired by many people. The more general and easy to achieve a skill is the more likely more people can acquire and become proficient at it. As you get more and more specialised, whether by knowledge needed or specific skills required, the pool of people who can acquire and become proficient with the skills is smaller.
It depends on the way that you approach the skills. Even if practice and understanding of the activity is important, you need to think positive about it. How can you improve? How is he exactly doing it?
Font: My experience learning to play Piano, Guitar and Flute by myself.
It depends. There is a very particular set of skills; skills which have to be acquired over a very long career. Skills that gonna make you a nightmare for bad people.
So that If they let your loved ones go now, that'll be the end of it. You will not look for them, you will not pursue them. But if they don't, you will look for them, you will find them, and you will kill them.
EPT
