Study to Show Yourself Approved: 5 Tips to Help You Persevere When Learning a New Skill

1. Remember That Your Contribution is Valuable

Each time I’ve started learning the skills necessary to express the gifts I believe God is calling me to share, I’ve been confronted with doubt about whether what I have to offer really matters.

I clearly remember wrestling with this doubt when I first started writing. I knew that writing could transform lives—I certainly had been positively impacted by other people’s devotions, articles, and books. But could ‘my’ writing make a difference? Could God really use my words to touch people’s hearts?

Now as a beginning artist, I’m confronted again with the same kind of questions about the value of what I have to offer. I know art is important—but sometimes I wonder: Does my art matter?

Does it Matter?

While having these thoughts isn’t unusual when we’re first starting out (or even well into our journey), if we dwell on our doubts and fears, we increase the chances that we’ll stall out and fail to develop our skills. We risk ending up like the third servant in the parable of the talents. Though he was entrusted with a fortune, he buried his talent. (The New English Translation commentary states that one talent—the amount the third servant was given—was equivalent to 6,000 denarii, with one denarius being the usual wage for one day of labor. That means this servant was given 6,000 days of wages—that’s about 19 years’ worth of earnings!)

There are likely multiple reasons why this servant hid his gift, but one possible reason is that he compared what he had to what the other two servants, who had been given five and three talents respectively, had. Even though he’d been given massive funds, I believe that after measuring his bag of money against the others’ bags of money, he decided that his lesser sum was insignificant and not worth investing.

Let’s not make the same mistake. If God has called you to learn a new skill, it matters—immensely. Your contribution, no matter how humble it may seem, is a valuable part of His plan. It is part of your effort to ^“Study to show yourself approved by God” (2 Timothy 2:15b, MEV).  Accepting and remembering this truth can help you persevere when the going gets tough.

2. Lean Not on Your Own Understanding

If I’m upstairs in my house and I hear my husband call up from the first floor, “Can you come down here for a minute?” I’ll most likely respond by asking, “Why?”

Like many people, I don’t like doing things—even walking down the stairs—without a reason.

I’ve found that my fixation with knowing why has impacted my art journey. When I first started sensing that God was inviting me to delve into art, it didn’t make much sense. It didn’t seem to fit with the other things He’s called me to. I was reluctant to dedicate much time to it when I had so many other (seemingly) more pressing responsibilities.

But sometimes, God calls us to do things without giving us a clear reason. And I’ve come to see that art is something God does want me to take seriously, even though I don’t fully understand how it fits with His plan. He’s asking me to “lean not on [my] own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5b) and, instead, trust that He knows what He’s doing.

If you feel God calling you to something but you’re struggling to move forward because it doesn’t seem to make sense, remembering that He sees the big picture can help you find the courage to carry on.

3. Find an Organized, Step-By-Step Approach to Learning Your Skill

Over the last year, my approach to learning to draw and paint has been pretty haphazard. While I have learned a lot from YouTube, I didn’t feel like I was gaining a coherent, organized understanding of the principles and techniques that make for good drawing and painting.

On top of that, I often feel overwhelmed by all I have to learn, and my hodgepodge approach didn’t help. Instead, it only added to the feeling that I was wandering aimlessly through an interesting but confusing forest, wanting to make it to the other side but clueless as to how to get there.

I realized that I needed to find an approach that would teach me in a systematic, step-by-step manner.

Taking Steps

In response to this need for more structure, I bought a drawing book that contains 30 short lessons. Each lesson taught a skill necessary for drawing. I just started working through a similar, 30-lesson book for painting. And I also signed up for an online painting course.

The lessons in my books and in my course can all be completed in around 15 to 30 minutes. This organized, bite-sized approach has done a lot to ease my sense of overwhelm. I find it so much easier to start a lesson when I know it won’t take long to complete. Plus, focusing on one micro-skill at a time helps make what I’m learning feel less complicated and more accessible. Another benefit to this more ordered approach is that it helps me be more efficient. Instead of spending tons of time scrolling through YouTube, trying to decide which skill to learn next, the authors of my books have already decided for me.

If you’re feeling disorganized and overwhelmed by all you have to learn, try finding a way to break your skill into smaller, organized chunks. Take a class, find a book that will guide you step by step, or join a membership site that has lessons for you to follow. It’s much easier to press forward when the next step is a simple, clear-cut, 20-minute practice session.

4. Recognize That Persistence Pays Off—Possibly Much More Quickly Than You Might Expect

Have you ever heard that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill? If that enormous number makes you feel as overwhelmed as it does me, I have some good news. It’s true that becoming a master-level, world-class competitor does take years of practice, according to researcher and writer Josh Kaufman. But we can develop proficiency at a new skill in a fraction of that time. 

In an interview published by Forbes.com, Kaufman states that “the early hours of trying something new are always challenging. But a little persistence can result in huge increases in skill. The human brain is optimized to pick up new skills extremely quickly. If you persist and practice in an intelligent way, you’ll always experience dramatic improvements in a very short period of time.” He goes on to say that “you can usually achieve the goals you set yourself in around 20 hours of deliberate practice.”

Day by Day

Twenty hours! That sounds a lot more doable than 10,000, doesn’t it?

While you definitely want to pursue excellence—to study to show yourself approved—it takes some pressure off to remember that, while you may eventually reach a master level, it’s okay if, at the moment, you’re an amateur. What matters most is that we do the best we can with what we have. And one of the best ways we can do that is simply practice, step by step, day by day. For me, knowing that consistent practice can yield good results in a relatively short amount of time motivates me to keep putting in the effort!

5. Relax and Enjoy the Process

I don’t know about you, but I’m prone to taking myself and my work a little too seriously. Sometimes to the point of stressing myself out and losing my joy in the journey. When that happens, I start to feel discouraged. And when that happens, it’s much harder to find the motivation to push on.

I have to remind myself that while honoring our callings and working hard to develop the skills necessary to express our gifts is important, working hard doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have fun.

Take a look at the words of Lady Wisdom found in Proverbs 8:30-31. “Then I was constantly at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind” (NIV).

Enjoy Your Work

Here, Wisdom, who is a personification of God’s wisdom, or, some theologians say, a reference to Jesus Himself, describes being present as God created the world. And she wasn’t sitting off to the side, stoic and sterned faced as God formed the clouds and mountains and oceans. Rather, Wisdom was celebrating and exalting in the creation process. I’m convinced that God Himself rejoiced as He created. And I’m also convinced that He desires us to enjoy our work just as much as He did.

So, as you persist in learning your new skill, relax and enjoy the process. Play. Experiment. Work hard, certainly, but don’t let your dedication dampen your ability to have fun. We’ll get much farther in the long run if we work from a place of peace and joy rather than from duty and obligation. After all, God is a loving Father, not a taskmaster. He’s much more interested in His relationship with us than He is in our performance for Him. 

YOU CAN DO IT!

Whether you’re learning to sculpt clay, use sign language, grow your own vegetables, play the guitar, manage a nonprofit, or drive a tractor-trailer, I hope these tips spur you on as you study to show yourself approved. Though learning a new skill can be hard, if God has called you and you’re committed to leaning on Him, You CAN do it because, with God, anything is possible!