I’m a big believer in reading. Books, blogs, articles, whatever. You can learn a lot from reading others’ work. But here’s the thing – if you want to get great at something, you won’t get there just by reading about it.

The only way to be great at a thing, any thing, is to go do that thing.

Repeatedly.

Over and over, learning from your mistakes, and getting incrementally better each and every time.

This is how you build any skill. This is how you become better at anything.

This is how you become great.

It’s incredibly simple. But it’s really not easy.

Because on your way to great, you have to pass through a lot of other places. And most of us don’t want to go through them.

Fear of failure. Fear of not being any good. Fear of not really knowing how to do something.

A whole lot of fear. Which some people will tell you to just ignore. But the thing is, when you first step out of your comfort zone to try something new, you probably won’t succeed at first. You might not be any good in the beginning. You probably don’t know how to do it as well as you’d like. So the fears aren’t completely out-of-touch.

However, you are completely free to ignore them no matter how realistic they are.

Because the thing is, if you keep doing – if you really keep doing that thing you want to become great at, put everything you’ve got into it, go after it with tunnel-vision instead of just going through the motions – then you, my friend, will improve.

One day you’ll find that you’re getting just a little better. And the next, better still.

And if you keep on keeping at it, if you have the patience to do the work and not just think about doing the work or read about doing the work or dream about doing the work, but you actually do the work – then you will keep on improving.

And one day, hopefully one day sooner than later, you will look in the mirror and realize that all the time you were working, executing, practicing, practically learning, and putting everything you had into your practice, you were changing.

Growing.

Improving.

Becoming great.

~xo,
LuAnne