By Michael Schoeff
Each person has unique skills and abilities that can be improved to maximize various areas of life. Skills are generally mistaken for talent, which is perceived as a genetic gift that can be performed effortlessly. The truth is all of us have something at which we are good and which falls under the umbrella of talent.
Returning to skills, they are various and can include technical, transferable and personal skills. Technical skills involve the ability to know how to do something, to fix or create things and are typically required in technical jobs. Transferable skills are related to organizing, leadership, customer service or teamwork and are helpful across many professions. Personal skills are related to being reliable, self-motivated, following your intuition etc.
According to Daniel Coyle, there are demonstrated methods to improve any skill with the R.E.P.S Gauge. In “The Little Book of Talent,” he mentions 52 methods to do this. The key is to accomplish several criteria that consist of reaching and repeating, engagement, purposefulness as well as strong and speedy feedback. Here is a look at the R.E.P.S. Gauge and how it will help you improve your skills.
Reaching and Repeating
The first step is to reflect on and identify your skills. Visualize how your skills have helped you in certain situations and think about how to use them in the future. Reaching and repeating is based on the action of practicing your abilities. To reach your abilities, you should choose the best approach and perform repeated actions to improve your skills.
Engagement
Invest in skills that make you happy and bring value to your life. This way you can pursue areas where you can make better use of your skills. Here comes the part of the engagement. Engagement consists of focusing on the skill you want to improve and feel emotionally invested in striving for a goal. Creating goals will make you feel happier and will help you achieve more. Think about the skills you want to improve and make sure they are specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused and timely.
When acting, make sure you split the tasks so as you can accomplish the actions you need to. Stay interested in the outcome of every practice session and you’ll be more engaged and improve more rapidly.
Purposefulness
Purposefulness refers to connecting the practice to the skill you want to develop and improve. The best way to perform well your skill is to practice in its specific medium. Avoid general goals and make a plan using specific goals. Set achievable goals and then set dates and create timeframes to make them measurable.
If you focus on the results, you’ll be able to stay motivated throughout the entire process. Think about the benefits of meeting your goal and focus on the outcome of it.
Strong, Speedy Feedback
This refers to the immediate and consistent flow of information related to the performance. Test your skills at each stage and ensure you get your results right away. Don’t forget that immediate feedback is the best feedback. Waiting a day or more for feedback creates a mental distance and a lack of engagement that may become hard to overcome. This way, you waste the time you invested to learn.
Useful Tips
Think about the roles you currently have in your life or have previously had and write down the skills required for each. See which skills overlap, which are the most enjoyable and which aid you the most in moving forward.
If you are passionate about certain activities, you can turn them into a career. Once your livelihood depends on using and improving your skills, you’ll learn to use your skills more creatively and to approach problems in new ways.
Make use of any resource you have on hand to open up your skills. Stay open so you can find out more about your strengths and weaknesses.
Transfer your abilities from one sector of the life to another to better value your skills. Don’t forget to make them known in any circumstances.
Engage in friendly competitions with persons who share your skills to accelerate the improvements of your skills.
Approach criticism as constructive, avoid being defensive and be conscious of the thing that failure always accompanies risk. Focus on your passion, see what you can improve and take the next step.
Stay up-to-date with the information related to your skills and keep them sharp by joining organizations, clubs, and professional societies. Attend workshops and events regularly. Networking is beneficial and has proved to be an important personal skill. It opens the doors to information, people and power. You can discover persons with similar interests and career path or events that may help you improve your skills. You may ask them how they improved their skills or how they achieved success.
If you feel your work is stagnant, don’t give up. Find creative ways to approach situations, keep going on and the success won’t be late.