Developing hard and sought after skills

This is going to be key for thriving in the 21st Century. And what does this take? Nothing short of painful and demanding practice and hard work.

And not mindless practice, mind you. But deliberate practice. Practice that involves setting goals, and stretching oneself beyond one's current abilities.

It's uncomfortable.

And much much less enticing than a quick peek at email, or Twitter, or anything else really.

Speaking of social media distractions, I saw a delightful tweet a couple of weeks ago in response to a plea for how to get motivated to clean an apartment: "Start writing a book."
We will squirm our way out of difficult, mentally-taxing work at every opportunity.

It's human nature.

In other words, developing hard and sought after skills is itself a hard and sought after skill.
Personal development recursion for the win.