An Emotional Journey Through Learning a New Skill

Learning a new skill is a very fulfilling and growing experience. As you develop a new interest, you go through a wide range of positive emotions. It is a very constructive journey, and I want to share with you the five positive emotions I went through as I picked a new skill: playing the electric guitar. I hope it motivates you to try such a journey for yourself!

It all started in a small downtown apartment on a dark night of October. It was well past midnight and a few friends and I were playing cards and having drinks, celebrating a milestone we had just met at work. Being in a small apartment, in an area where there are a few colleges around, there were a lot of students in the neighborhood and it was quite loud that night. You could hear the mumble of loud televisions through the walls, the muffled voices of two people arguing from above, and at one point, I heard something so thunderous and earth shattering that I thought a car had just crashed in the building. That’s when my friend who rents the apartment decided to fight back.

He pulled a hard suitcase from under his sofa, along with a strange black box that he instantly plugged in an electric outlet. From the suitcase, he raised something that would become the object of my desire: his white Ibanez electric guitar.

It turns out that there are many guitarists in my circle of friends and I didn’t even know about it. I stood mesmerized as I watched and listened to the aggressive screeching music and melodic solos they were pulling out of the blue.

I didn’t learn to play the guitar that night. I didn’t even want to hold it in my hands. But sure enough, I had made up my mind: the next morning, I would go to the music store and get my very own electric guitar. And first thing in the morning, I sure did.

Unknowingly, I had already embarked on a journey filled with emotions, and the first one I experienced was…

Curiosity

Watching my friends play the guitar like that piqued my curiosity. In fact, as I think about it now, this curiosity opened a whole new world to me.

Before you invest your time and money in a new skill or hobby, you feel curious about it. You start to build your interest in it and you begin to explore many possibilities. You start thinking in “what-ifs” – what if I try it? What if it’s fun? What if I’m good at it? What if I like it?

Then you make the jump: you decide to try it.

Eagerness

I couldn’t wait to hold my very own guitar in my hands. I didn’t sleep much the night before because as soon as I made the decision to buy a guitar, I was too excited and I couldn’t relax.

Once you decide to learn a new skill, you make arrangements such as buying your equipment or scheduling lessons. This process can be very exciting because you know you’re about to experience something new.

Depending on the nature of the hobby you want to learn, these arrangements can also take a lot of time and will require of you to be patient… and you’re going to need a lot of patience, I can tell you that.

Patience

Playing the guitar is not easy. I knew that when I held one for the first time. In fact, I didn’t even know how to hold it. I even started to become frustrated when I couldn’t figure out how to put some distortion on the amp. I had to remind myself that this skill would take a lot of work and quite a bit of time to learn correctly.

When you try something you have never tried before, you need to be patient. You can’t expect to be good at it the first time you do it. You need to keep practicing again and again, until…

Surprise

I was actually quite surprised the first time I hit the right strings and something that had a vague resemblance to music came out of the speakers. As I practiced and practiced, I found that I learned faster and faster. I didn’t know anything about music before that and I’ve been surprising myself at how fast I could learn it.

You don’t know how good you are at something until you try it. When you decide to learn a new skill, you surprise yourself at how fast you can make progress when you put your mind to it.

Pride

After a lot of practice, I finally managed to learn a few chords of my favourite songs. It’s not much, but hey – it sounds like music! I have finally reached the point where I’m actually playing the guitar! When I look back at where I started and where I am now, I feel so proud of what I learned to do all by myself.

Learning a new skill makes you proud of what you achieve. Here’s something you have never done before and you didn’t even think you could do – and hey, you’re doing it! And doing it quite well!

So am I good at playing the guitar now? No, not at all. I don’t know how to play any song fully, I struggle with the basics and I still don’t sound very good. Do I encourage you to try a new hobby? Yes, absolutely! In fact, I urge you to try something new right now! Do you have a hobby you’d like to try? A new skill you want to learn? If so, what are you waiting for! If anything, the emotional journey is more than worth it.