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How to Teach Yourself Anything

Goal setting helps to teach yourself anything

Whether you want to learn how to DIY or play an instrument, you can teach yourself to do anything these days. Paying for lessons or a private tutor is great, but there’s really no need for that until you’ve used the steps here. Take a look and see what you can do to teach yourself anything.

Give Yourself a Goal

First of all, you need a goal. Let’s say you want to learn how to play an instrument. Setting yourself both big and small goals for this will help you to keep things achievable. For example, you might set a goal of learning three chords off by heart in two weeks.

Your ultimate goal may be to be able to play without help properly in a year. Having only one big goal won’t keep you motivated enough, so make sure you create small goals too.

Use Online Resources to Teach Yourself Anything

There are lots of online resources that you can use to teach yourself anything you want. For example, websites with course material on them are available for free or a small fee. Then there’s YouTube, which can be a great way to teach yourself new skills.

There are even dedicated websites to special skills. If you were going to teach yourself an instrument, a site like Ukulele-lessons.com would be helpful. There’s a never-ending amount of online resources you can use to help you learn something.

Buy Books and Magazines

Some people actually prefer to learn by reading a book, rather than watching videos. Whichever category you fall into, buying books and magazines can help you to further perfect your new craft. With magazines you may be able to learn more about exciting new products and techniques in your industry too.

Set Aside Time Every Day for Your Goal

If you’re going to teach yourself to do something properly, you need to carve out time for it each day. You can’t have any excuses, or think “I’ll get to it when I have time.” Instead, prioritize the new skill and work it into your schedule.

What that looks like will be unique to your lifestyle. Will you do it for an hour in the morning? Perhaps you’ll do it for 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the evening.  Even just practicing for 10-20 minutes per day builds a habit and helps you to learn. That’s why it’s a great tip to teach yourself anything.

Monitor Your Progress

Monitoring your progress can be lots of fun, especially when you see how far you’ve come over time. Take pictures of your first attempts at things, or create videos, so you can see progress clearly later. For example, play a chord or a song now and then again in 3 weeks. Do the same thing another few weeks down the line, and you’ll quickly see how you’re improving at playing the piano or another activity.

Teach Yourself Anything: Celebrate the Wins

Don’t forget to celebrate your big and small wins. Did you learn a new set of French words? Then treat yourself to a long relaxing bath tonight. Completed a bigger goal? Treat yourself to something bigger!

25 thoughts on “How to Teach Yourself Anything”

  1. You always have good advice, Christy! These days, anything we need to learn or know we use the Internet. It’s hard to remember how we got by without this tool.

  2. I taught myself how to do fondant art from books and magazine’s Christy. You can find everything somewhere on the internet (except how to make a fondant tap and rhino – I had to make those up myself [smile]).

  3. Awesome post, Christy! I consider myself to be an enthusiastic, passionate learner. The resources we have access to leave very few barriers to an eager mind. Cheers! :)

  4. Great tips, and I think that celebrating the small achievements can be really important in maintaining that motivation and desire to keep going. The internet, as you said, is also a wonderful thing when it comes to learning with so many blogs, tutorials, YouTube vids etc to help with anything and everything! :)
    Caz x

  5. Daily time aside is great discipline for anything, but you’re right about how daily repetition really helps build a new skill. We basically are rewiring our brains with this new information.

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