I'm Mark — I'm 38, I have two kids, a full-time job, and a long history of trying to learn new things as an adult. If you want the full list, it's on the about page. Some have stuck. Many haven't. These are my observations from that trial and error — not academic research or professional advice, just what I've noticed paying attention to what seems to make the difference.
For a long time I assumed the pattern was talent, or time, or discipline — that the things that didn't stick were just casualties of a busy life. Looking back more honestly, I don't think that's it. The things that worked shared certain qualities. The things that didn't had certain things missing.
These are the four things.
1. Be specific about what you actually want
"I want to learn piano" is not a goal. It's a category.
The piano world is vast. Classical, jazz, pop, gospel, boogie-woogie. Reading sheet music versus playing by ear. Performing versus playing for yourself. These are genuinely different skills, and starting one doesn't automatically develop the others.
When I started learning piano, I didn't think hard enough about this. I went along with what lessons seemed to involve — scales, classical pieces, reading notation — rather than asking what I actually wanted. It took months before I realised: I wanted to play pop music by ear. I wanted to sit down and work out a song I liked. I didn't particularly want to sight-read Beethoven.
Once I got specific, everything changed. The resources I needed were different. The way I practised was different. The sense of progress was immediate.
Be specific. Not "I want to learn Spanish" but "I want to be able to hold a conversation with my colleague's family when I visit Seville." Not "I want to learn guitar" but "I want to play the songs I listened to in my twenties around a campfire." Specificity tells you what to practise. Vagueness keeps you unfocused.
2. It has to be fun
This sounds obvious. It isn't.
Motivation is what gets you to start. It's the exciting initial phase where you watch YouTube videos and imagine your future competent self and buy the equipment. Motivation is great — but it has a short shelf life. Real life reasserts itself. The novelty fades. The initial excitement runs out, and you're left with the reality of actually having to practise.
At that point — and this is the part nobody talks about honestly — you will not force yourself to do something you find unpleasant. Not consistently, not long-term. You'll tell yourself you will. You won't.
This isn't a character flaw. It's just how being a busy adult works. You don't have unlimited willpower, and the things that require it are competing with a thousand other demands. The only things that last are the things that have some genuine pull. Some enjoyment. Something you'd actually choose to do.
What does "fun" mean here? It doesn't have to mean giggling with delight every session. It means you enjoy it enough that you look forward to it, even a little. That the session itself is the reward, not just the result. That you'd feel mildly disappointed if you couldn't fit it in, rather than secretly relieved.
If what you're doing feels like homework, find a different approach before you give up entirely. Usually the problem isn't the skill — it's the method. Learning Spanish through Duolingo streaks and verb conjugation tables is genuinely unpleasant for most people. Learning it through watching TV shows you enjoy and chatting to people is not.
3. The goal of the first few weeks isn't progress — it's habit and enjoyment
This one took me a long time to accept.
When you start learning something, progress feels terribly slow. There's a gap between what you can do and what you want to be able to do, and that gap is large and very visible. If you spend your early sessions fixated on that gap, you'll either push yourself too hard and burn out, or demoralise yourself and give up.
The better framing: the first few weeks are not really about learning the skill. They're about building the habit of showing up, and discovering whether you actually enjoy this enough to continue.
That's it. That's the goal.
If, after four weeks, you've practised consistently three or four times a week and you're still enjoying it — that's a success, regardless of how much you've improved. You now have a habit and genuine interest. The skill will come. If you haven't enjoyed it, that's also valuable information: maybe the method is wrong, or the specific sub-skill, or just the skill itself. Better to find out in week four than to slog through a year of misery.
Don't measure early sessions by how good you're getting. Measure them by whether you're showing up and whether it's enjoyable.
4. To keep a skill, you need to use it
Skills are not possessions. You don't acquire them and then have them forever.
The brain works through use. Neural pathways strengthen with repetition and weaken without it. This is not a motivational metaphor — it is how memory and motor skill work. A language you don't speak fades. An instrument you stop playing gets rusty. The good news is that re-learning something you once knew is much faster than learning it from scratch. But the fading is real.
This has a practical implication: when you choose what to learn, think about how it fits into your actual life. Not your imagined future life, but your current one. Spanish is more likely to stick if you have a reason to speak it regularly. Piano is more likely to stick if there are people to play for, or songs you love that you keep coming back to.
The best skill to learn isn't necessarily the most impressive or the most useful in the abstract. It's the one that naturally weaves into your life. The one you'll keep picking up.
Everything else on this site sits under these four pillars. The specific guides for piano, BJJ, Spanish — they're all attempts to help you be more specific, find the more enjoyable path, build the habit, and make the skill stick in real life.
Start there.