Developing A Skill

This lesson could be useful for youth ministries, family devotionals or family home evenings. Today we discuss developing our skills.

It takes a long time to become good at something. You only have to attend a concert and talk to the musicians or singers on stage to find out that they have practiced for hours and hours before they performed on stage. Many musicians have practiced a song so much that they might have it memorized.

You can interview a talented artist and they might show you’re their sketches or early drafts of a painting or illustration. If you are able to spend time with an actor, he or she might take the time to tell you how they performed in different plays. How they were rejected for some auditions and how they finally stated getting accepted for varous parts. In the beginning they only had small parts in those plays; but, as they got better they got bigger parts until they started getting the lead roles. Those playing sports can talk about the hours upon hours they practiced alone or with team members until they too refined their skills.

There are several shared traits between all the people mentioned above: Ambition, hard work and practice. Prior to this lesson find some books that talk about several famous people’s lives. See if you can find photos of when they were young. Find quotes from the books of these famous people that touch upon the various challenges they faced as they pursued their career. They might give examples of the practice sessions at an early age. They might talk about various failures they experienced before they eventually began to have success.

Now have the family members or class members’ brain storm of the different dreams they might have. As a group discuss what might be required to achieve success in some of those goals. Discuss some of the barriers they might face that might discourage them and how they can combat those challenges. The class can discuss how achieving really small goals can add up to working to bigger goals.

Parents and teachers might touch upon a personal experience where you overcame challenges to achieve a goal. Talks about your failures and eventual success and what had to be done for the success.

Have everyone set a small goal for the week and work on their goal throughout the week until you meet next time where they will give a progress report of that goal.