This month’s T-SQL Tuesday invitation from Todd asks us to consider mastery of skills.
Learning is a continual cycle, a part of our everyday – be it on a personal or professional journey. Mastering is more than simply learning though. Todd hits on key terms in his invitation – commitment, planning, deliberate practice, consistency.
Ticking those boxes certainly puts you on the right track.
Honestly, I’m not disciplined enough to crack that. As much as I’d like to be.
I’d describe my personal approach to learning as tangential. I’ll focus on a particular topic until a point that I’m satisfied with where I’m at, and then move to another which may be related – sometimes broader, sometimes deeper.
This doesn’t lead to the type of mastery which Todd discusses. Mastery may happen at some point in the journey, but the process is much more protracted. Any skills I’d dare say that I’ve ‘mastered’ would have been built up over the course of a decade or more.
I think that personal styles also shape how we approach learning too, and it’s as important to understand how we absorb the knowledge as what direction we want to head in. I can’t digest books cover to cover. For me, I prefer slices of learning which can then be translated into practical exercise – such as video on demand learning.
So what’s up next for me?
Well I’m still exploring and getting to grips with the many facets of Azure. My current sentiment is that breadth of understanding can be valuable, which has been echoed by others I’ve spoken to about the journey into the cloud. A simple ‘data’ solution requires a number of components which would be considered infrastructure, security, networking, identity, etc.
Coming back to the terms from earlier – specifically planning and deliberate practice – for these reasons I’m using Microsoft’s Fundamentals certifications as a launchpad whilst gaining exposure to elements of the Cloud Adoption and Well Architected frameworks. This provides an initial structure for the learning with opportunities to head off at tangents where I feel, or head deeper with further learning or Role-Based certifications.
Also, be mindful of limitations – whether that’s other priorities and commitments, or your own personal limitations. You can only push in one direction at a time, and I’ve learned that time-bounding my learning doesn’t help my journey. I’ll arrive when I do, and I’m good with that.
But that’s just me. Everyone is in a different position in their journeys of life, career, and learning. Todd laid out an admirably strong plan on his journey to master prompt engineering and I’m intrigued to see how the wider community responds to the invitation from their diverse perspectives.
Andy Brownsword 