The Challenge of Learning New Skills
/When I first undertook the project of revamping the Excel Thru Learning website, I felt confident that I could manage the process, especially since I had those around me who were willing to help out and lend their knowledge. Two things happened which I didn’t anticipate (but probably should have!):
- Those who offered help also had their own jobs, projects and time commitments. This meant that my fountains of knowledge were really more of a sporadic trickle that I had to catch at the right time, or I was out of luck.
- I don’t speak website domain transfer tech lingo (which is vastly different from everyday language), which really inhibited my ability to push the final stages of website creation forward.
As you can see, the new site is up, which means I did manage to overcome my challenge – the challenge of learning new skills. What makes this the most difficult challenge to overcome? Not only did I need to learn new skills, which is fine as I am always open to learning, but I had to learn new skills that I wasn’t even aware of. It comes down to the proverbial “You don’t know what you don’t know.”
I am sure you have found yourself in this position before. It can be the most frustrating experience in your life. You recognize that something isn’t right, but you have no idea what, no way to explain it to others, and you aren’t even sure who to try to explain it to. Here is what I learned.
Just start anywhere.
It may not be the ideal spot to start, you may not be talking to the right person, but if you start you are at least putting yourself on the right path. It may be a long, winding, confusing path, or you may find your path is shorter and simpler than you thought. Either way, you started and every beginning ends somewhere.
Here is what I learned:
- How to build a website from scratch – add pictures, links, text, pages, contacts forms – the whole shebang.
- Who our domain name is registered with, which, as it turns out, is vastly different from who hosts our domain.
- Who I should really, in the future, call on for help.
- This last one is the most important – I learned that I can do something I didn’t think I could. It was a bit of a struggle, but the pride I feel in knowing that I can start a project that is so completely foreign to me, learn the new skills needed to make it work, and see it through to the end is awesome.
Michelle DeVerno