It Takes 1000 Hours To Master A Skill, So Why Do People Expect Success Immediately?

I got inspired to write this blog post after reading an article on Forbes about debunking the myth of the overnight success. How it's just a narrative we tell ourselves after reading about a rags to riches story, and how if it can happen so quickly for them then it can for us too.

But what these stories tend to leave out is how much hard work and failure these people will generally go through before finding their breakthrough. Because let's face it in these types of articles dreams sell better than reality does. That's not to say dreams don't come true as they most definitely do, it's more about being realistic about what it normally takes to achieve those dreams.

In this article he talks with the co-founder of LinkedIn about what they call the "Valley of Death". Which is basically the notion that every road to success is long and full of hardship and it's how you navigate it (and not giving up) that determines if you succeed or not.

You see, when the going gets tough, it’s very easy to call it a day and move on. After all, our society loves winners and rarely tolerates losers.

However, when the going gets tough, it’s important to remember that the overnight successes we love to praise are simply the people who managed to navigate through the valley of death.

Let's use the above quote to think about the people looking to start their own business, most if not all new businesses don't make any profit in their first year. It's estimated to be around the third year before the small businesses that stick around start to become profitable. That's a long time and a lot of money lost before they start establishing themselves, so no surprise most new businesses close within the first year or two.

So, how's that any different to us, after all are we not creating businesses ourselves here? It may be online but it's still a business nonetheless that requires money spent and time sacrificed. The advantage for us is here at Wealthy Affiliate "operating costs" are much lower than those running physical businesses where you have to pay for rent and stock etc...

That's why I find it extremely odd that people give up after a few months, hell there's people who've probably given up within a week or two. They're the ones who are after a get rich quick scheme and use those "overnight success" stories to justify their decision to give up. They'll just move onto the next "big thing", hope for overnight success, get frustrated when it doesn't happen and the cycle continues. Completely ignoring how much time and sacrifice those "overnight successes" put in to finally get their big break, sacrifices most people aren't willing to make.

Circling back to the title of this blog post, it takes 1000 hours to master a skill so why are people giving up so easily? Compare that to those who pursue a university education, on top of the huge amount of money needed to pay for it you still have to spend at least few years learning before you're even qualified for a job in that field.

With us creating websites though we are already qualified or at least very knowledgeable about our niche. What we're learning here is how to create beautiful websites, master SEO and keywords, but also how to market affectively on social media. There's so many things to learn and it would take a lot of time to master all of it. Thankfully there's many wonderful classes from people like Jay and Eric or short quick tutorials from people like Vitaliy as well.

As long as you learn and take on board what's being said that counts towards your 1000 hours. But perhaps the biggest learning will be from the mistakes you make on your journey, the more time you spend on your site the more you will master little things that matter. Through trial and error you will learn what works for you and what doesn't and that's extremely valuable.

But while it may take 1000 hours to master something you can certainly reach some level of competency much earlier than that. You don't need to have mastered everything in order to start making money, but once you do master it nothing will stop you from reaching goals beyond your wildest dreams.

Ultimately that takes time though, but if you set aside an hour a day to either watch a class here or do some practical work on your site, you'll start learning the ropes quite quickly. An hour a day, that's 365 hours in a year, 3 years of that and you'll be at 1000 hours, and 3 years is the average time it takes for new businesses to become profitable, coincidence? Probably, since new business owners will spend more than an hour a day learning but interesting nonetheless.

So why give up after a few weeks or months having only put in probably less than 20 hours of time to it. Give yourself the time and patience to learn and subsequently master, trust me once you've done that you'll get through the "Valley of Death" and nothing will be able to stop you.