So for the longest time (3 1/2 months now) I’ve been trying to buy a rug for my apartment.
I can already hear you say: “Ok Neville, I really don’t give a shit about the status of your apartment decoration… ::eye roll::”
Shut up.
So when I got my previous apartment, I had zero furniture, and zero idea how to decorate. I hate decorating. It’s not something I’m good at.
And I’m not good at it, because I put no effort into it.
Since we can trade people our money, to do things for us….. I hired some designer friends, gave them a $5,000 budget (including their fees) and told them to just “do the whole damn thing for me.”
In less than a week I had a fully furnished apartment that looked like someone in semi-adulthood lived there:
A while later I moved from that place for a few reasons
- I had lived there for 2 years.
- The apartment got robbed and someone stole all my Apple products (this really jacked with my head and made me resent the location a bit).
- It was EVER SO SLIGHTLY on the ghetto side of town (just found out the 4 people got mugged outside my door this past weekend….so I made a good decision).
So now that I’ve moved to a new place, I had to move around a lot of the furniture and get rid of certain things that didn’t look right. But one new thing was hardwood floors.
So APPPAARRENNTTLLYY for your living room, you gotta get a big-ass rug to indicate “this is the living room area.”
Whatever…. how hard could this be?? I decided to try doing this myself in order to learn SOME design skills.
Well I never realized what a hard decision this was.
My previous crowning achievement in the decoration department was this black & white Homer Simpson poster that followed me for years through 2 dorm rooms and 3 apartments (I’m not kidding):
So clearly my interior decorating skills are on the poor side.
But like I said before (and this is important):
I’m not good at it, because I put no effort into it.
The people I knew who were “good” at design spent lots of time reading magazines about design, watching tv shows about design, keeping an eye out for cool decor, and practicing it themselves.
But they all started somewhere.
Basically if you want to learn something….there’s always small baby steps you can take to get started. Here’s a couple examples: The reason I suggest baby steps is from experience of watching people “want to do something” ….and then HATE it when they start doing it.
THING TO LEARN: BABY STEPS TO TAKE:
If you wanna learn to decorate:
–Try re-arranging your own living space.
–Go through decorating magazines or pick up an Ikea catalog for ideas.
If you want to start a blog:
–Start a free blog on Blogger.com and start writing something. ANYTHING. Stories from your life. Advice you’ve learned. Just write.
If you want to start an ecommerce website and sell stuff online:
–1st get familiar with how to sell things online. Signup for BigCommerce or Shopify and build test stores.
–Don’t worry about exactly WHAT to sell first….just get the technical side down and keep writing down ideas.
If you want to learn a specific skill like woodcarving (I couldn’t think of anything better):
–Start by Google’ing “How to woodcarve”
–Grab a piece of wood and your mom’s best knife and start carving.
If you want to become a copywriter:
–Google it.
–Watch copywriting advice for newbies.
–Go to Amazon and buy books about copywriting or get my KopywritingKourse
If you want to start making apps:
–Big surprise: Google “how to design an app”
–Go to Udemy and take a free or paid course on how to make an app.
–Download some app templates and start tinkering with them.
If you want to learn ANYTHING:
–Google “how to (insert thing you wanna do).”
–Go to Amazon buy books about it.
–Start doing a ghetto version of it. Just “tinker”.
I wanted to be a doctor when I was in high school (I mean…I AM Indian), so in high school I joined a program where I got to shadow 10 different doctors. By the end, I realized I HATTTEDD what the doctors had to do!
I quickly realized the environment and the work of a doctor were not my cup of tea.
Likewise…..taking a baby step towards something will show your true passion for it quickly. Either you’ll start off and soon your brain will become obsessed with it…..or your interest will quickly fizzle.
Have a happy Monday….and if you’re looking to start something new, try some baby steps for it. Lemme know what you’re trying to learn in the comments here, and I’ll answer with some baby steps on how you could get started!
Sincerely,
Neville
P.S. As for the rug decision? I went to the rug store yesterday with the mindset of walking out with a rug. By the time I made a purchase, I was still unsure about it…..but at least I dove into it, and within 5 days it’ll be delivered. At that point I’ll quickly realize if it looks awesome, or sucks….but at least I’ll learn something from the decision!