Here are some things I found recently when it comes to learning new skills:

• A skill that stands the test of time i.e stays in use for a long time and is worth the energy requires Passion and a few other things but this post is about passion in particular.
• Many people are victims of the belief system that you either have passion for something or not and that if you don’t you can’t do it; but that’s only half right.
• Passion can either be natural or acquired and for every individual, most skills or interests follow the path below with the exception of the once in a lifetime phenomenon of coming across something that fills you with an ever growing interest which is the natural form.
• The second and more important form for lifelong learning and a diversity of skill sets is the acquired Passion.
• The analogy I use in explaining this in my Upcoming Book is that there are two mountains to encounter when you first face a new challenge
• The first is one where your excitement and enthusiasm about something new lifts you to learn and absorb as much of it as you can until you reach the peak, at which point your excitement fades and you slowly lose interest; days become weeks, then months till you no longer have any interest this point I refer to as the valley of death.
• The valley of death is the point where you can either let that skill fall to it’s demise or come to the realisation that you are the base of a second mountain.
• At the top of the second mountain awaits the passion and excitement to fuel a life long Commitment to improving that skill as well as a horizon of various ways to make use of it.
• The climb up the second mountain is one in which you go on your own, your self imposed consistency which I refer to as a cocktail of Commitment, Discipline and Work becomes your gear for going up that mountain.

The kicker is this, not all skills need to get to the top of the second mountain, decide how proficient you want to become at a given skill when you get to the first peak of excitement so that you know where to take camp and call it a day with that specific skill.