When you first become interested in a new hobby that you know little about, the prospect of delving deep may seem daunting. After all there are so many experts in every field, not to mention a number of your Facebook friends who are likely very good at the thing you are interested in picking up.
Be it hiking, figure skating or knitting you have likely seen the results of aforementioned hobbies many times. Putting comparison aside (as you should when you decide to learn something new; everyone starts somewhere) you decide to take a leap of faith and pick up some yarn at a local craft store.
Then you may wonder - how long will it take me to be good? How long will I have to practice to hold my own in this area? How long until I become an expert should I choose to do so?
You may or may not have heard of research that stated you needed to put 10,000 hours into something to become a master at it. We know we certainly heard that number and were quickly disheartened by its sheer mass. As adults with jobs, families and several other hobbies it definitely seemed unrealistic to put in 10,000 hours into something we may or may not end up really enjoying.
What if we told you that it only takes 20 hours to go from knowing nothing about a subject to being pretty good at it?
Twenty hours. That's it. It is an equivalent of 40-45 minutes of practice every day for a month.
The reason it is so terrifying for us to pick up something new is because we dislike being bad at something. After all, who enjoys producing something subpar or not knowing enough? But if you stick to it and alleviate your discomfort by practice, you will quickly begin to see results.
"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." (source)
As you see, it really is not so intimidating. You can pick up the needles today and this time next month you will know exactly what you are doing and likely have a few products to show for it.
With chunky knitting the learning curve is even easier. After all given the size of the stitches you will have a finished product in as little as few hours, as opposed to traditional knitting where a blanket could take you months.
Give your brain the exercise it craves and try out chunky knitting - you will even learn a new skill in the process.
Get your own DIY kit here today and post your results below for inspiration to others!