How to Learn a New Skill with Online Resources
Learning a new skill can be a hard task… and learning a new skill online is even harder. Starting from the decision of what skill to learn, to finding useful and credible resources, to dedicating hours to a practice that can yield very few results and struggling with finding time and motivation to continue making progress.
I can detail all the agonies of each step, as I went through them… numerous times. Interestingly, the more skills I learn with online resources, the better I become in sorting what is relevant and what is not. Below, you will find 6 strategies to filter through the online noise and get the material you need to make progress fast.
#1 Ignore what feels scammy
Although this piece of advice sounds obvious, I’ve certainly have wasted too much time with sources that don’t look right from the beginning. I’m not saying you should judge a book by its cover, but sometimes the cover does say something…
Here’s a recent example. I’ve been learning how to trade stock options for the last few months. As you might imagine, in the trading world, there are many scammy and untrustful sources who want you to spend your money in their risky bets, so they can make more money. I was following a trader who looked a bit extravagant (and clickbaity) and never showed himself putting money into the exact trades he was promoting. Soon I realised he was actually more interested in making me lose money than winning.
Just as you wouldn’t learn mechanics with someone who doesn’t know Newton’s laws, you shouldn’t learn to invest, manage a business, or adobe photoshop with people who don’t seem to have learned the craft by themselves.
#2 Compile a list of useful resources to learn a skill online
Before starting to learn any skill online, I gather a list of resources that look useful, practical and are recommend many times on the web. I’m looking for best-selling books, popular youtube channels, high-rated online courses and people that exhale confidence and excitement for the topic.
Here’s how my process of finding online resources to learn looks like:
— Books: “best books in [skill you want to learn]”; “books to learn [skill you want to learn]”;
— Youtube Channels: “how to learn [skill you want to learn]” and filter by views/popularity and take a look into the channel of the person;
— Online Courses: search through online course marketplaces “how to learn [skill you want to learn]”;
— Blogs & Experts: “how I learned [skill you want to learn]”; “best blogs in [skill you want to learn]”.
After finishing the list, I bookmark the pages and create a folder on my web browser for easier access and/or subscribe to the channels, email lists, etc. It’s useful to have these resources at hand because they have been filtered through and are probably more trustworthy than most.
pro tip: It’s easy to get lost in all the available resources out there and never move through this step… Establish a number of trustful resources you want to gather, like 5 or 10, and move on.
#3 Ask for Feedback
Online learning is a blessing. You get to access hundreds of sources, practice what you learned, and improve along the way. Unfortunately, there is often a missing piece from this process: feedback.
What usually happens when learning a new skill online through an independent path, is the lack of direct instructions from those who have learned what you are learning. This can lead to a slower rate of progress and difficulty to figure out what to learn next. I’ve gone through these struggles when learning many different skills online: drums, skateboard or Spanish.
Sill, and even though online learning is not perfect, if you are aware of some of its limitations, you can work to face them smartly. This can be done by asking for feedback. You just need to find someone who has mastered the one skill and ask for direct feedback. You don’t need to schedule bi-weekly classes. But a feedback session now and then is very useful to move forward and improve the fundamentals. If you can find a friend or a family member who can help you is even better.
pro tip: Don’t ignore this step just because it is uncomfortable to expose your level of skill to somebody else. Every master started as a beginner, and you can almost surely expect a high degree of understanding from those who will provide you feedback.
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#4 Invest in your Skills when necessary
Nowadays, free online resources are incredibly powerful and can take you far. In fact, most of the skills I learned online started with free resources — blogs, youtube videos and books (not free, but affordable). But if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, is that investing in better resources is incredibly helpful when you are ready to so. Here are a couple of personal events that triggered some of these skill investments:
I’ve always wanted to learn how to play the drums. With some support from my boyfriend (who also plays), in November 2020, I got the courage to order a drum kit. While I was waiting for the drums to arrive, I watched many youtube videos to learn the basics. When the instrument arrived, I was often practising 3 hours a day with full excitement. As my interest was evident, I decided to invest in the Drumeo membership, which contains an incredible online course that covers each stepstone of the practice. The 200$ were reflected in the progress I was able to make from now on.
In recent months, I’m learning and experimenting with trading stock options. It’s been 4 years since I’ve been investing long-term in S&P 500 index fund and I’ve never had the interest to try other types of financial instruments. But this year, 2021, I decided to increase my knowledge about investments and I started how to trade stock options. I invested 20 hours in the learning process (through online and free resources) before making my first investment. That’ right… in this case, the investment didn’t go to a paid learning resource, but to investing itself. I experimented (fearfully) and end up making a beginner’s mistake (which I’ve learned about), costing me 70€. The other three following trades were quite successful.
The key insight is that sometimes, you must invest in the upgrade of your resources which can take many forms: private lessons, paid online courses, tutoring sessions, workshops, conferences, etc. And truth to be told, paying for these resources can certainly increase your commitment towards the skill you are learning.
#5 Share your progress!
During my childhood, my parents signed me up for different activities: ballet, swimming, piano, guitar, skating, and a couple more I don’t recall. In all of these activities, the goal was to acquire a certain level of skill and end of the year with a final performance to which the parents could watch, photograph and brag about their kids’ abilities.
When it comes to online skill learning, most of us hide the initial excitement, the journey and the results. We walk around quietly without wanting anyone to ask how things are going with that skill. We fear being judged and we have imposter syndrome.
Unfortunately, hiding whatever we’re learning does more harm than good. It can undermine your commitment and learning opportunities. And honestly, it feels a bit weird to not mention you’ve been practising the violin for 3 hours a day when your family asks you what you’ve been doing lately. I also don’t think you should spread the message as a new pandemic. Just don’t hide it so vigorously.
Embrace your progress, the stepbacks and the catastrophic failures. The mindset of embracing the suck, that’s how I like to call it. If you feel that hiding a skill has been harming your psychology, think about this: It’s much more inspiring to see the imperfect progress of a learner than the perfect results of a master.
How can you share your imperfect progress?
#6 Get out of the web
I’m an avid consumer of content, mostly through books. I love to learn and read about stuff. Unfortunately, when it comes to skill learning, there must be a great balance between learning and practising. And when content is so easily available, the former can take a greater percentage of the pie.
I try to remain vigilant of the time I spend learning and practising because it happened too many times getting lost in interesting articles and never actually putting the basics into practice. Even though I love to read writing advice, it is all useless if I sit to write. I highly recommend you to divide your time into chunks and save some to consuming educational content and others to getting your hands dirty.
It’s fairly easy to engage in a new skill from day to night, by hopping on available free content on the web. Still, some of the existing challenges can undermine your progress. I do hope the lessons shared above help you succeed!