Learning Skills without even Knowing It

Even though I've been in quarantine completely alone for a month, I am doing really well. I feel healthy and solid.

I attribute a good portion of that to writing here daily.

It's the doing it daily part that makes all the difference. I've had journals for most of my life, but I always wrote in them sporadically- and they helped, but not like this. Coming here every single day causes me to think about what I'm going to write, in the back of my head, throughout the day.

This causes a constant form of self-reflection. Writing those insights down here makes them real. Once they are real, I can take the necessary steps to act on them.

Being consistent grows whatever skills you do consistently, even the skills you aren't trying to grow. So if you're baking cookies consistently (cough me in March cough) you will get much better at baking cookies (and gaining the quarantine 15 😂).

Something I accidentally did last month was spending a few hours photographing landscapes every weekend. It just happened naturally as I explored my new home of Washington every Saturday or Sunday.

And look what happened.

This was taken in early March:

And this was taken yesterday:

I never consciously set out each weekend with the intention of getting better at photography.

I just took photos of the places I went to, and as I did, I noticed what made my best photo of the weekend so good. I noticed the way the light changes throughout the day. I noticed what aspects of a photo help tell a better story. All without really thinking about it. So in the second photo, I came during golden hour, picked an angle where the light would show through the petals, chose a groove between the flowers where there was water that would reflect the scene (vs dirt in the first one)... you get the idea. And the crazy thing is I didn't even think about it.

What other skills I am unconsciously building daily or weekly? Are those the skills I want to be learning?