My fiancée and I bought a house this year with grand visions of making it our own, taking on exciting projects, and making plenty of updates. We wanted to replace the popcorn ceiling with knockdown texture, repair damaged walls, paint the rooms, install new lights, change out outlets and switches, and more.
But there was an issue: neither of us had any experience doing these things, and we couldn’t afford to hire them out. So, with a mountain of projects and new ones popping up every day, I needed to start figuring out how to tackle them quickly so we could move in.
I didn’t need to become an expert, but I just needed to become skilled enough to overcome each challenge. Here is what I learned along the way.
Process For Solving New Problems
I knew I couldn’t work on the long list of house projects all at once, so I’d have to take them on one at a time. I found it most practical to pick one problem and focus on solving that before moving on to others.
While every project was different, the process for solving them remained the same.
- Understand the scope
- Research the ‘how to’
- Attempt, Reflect, & Adapt
- Complete the work
Understand the scope – Once you’ve identified the problem, it helps to understand the big picture of what the project will entail. For updating the ceiling texture, we knew it would include taping up plastic to protect the walls and floors, scraping off the popcorn texture, applying a new knockdown texture, and painting the ceilings. The scope gives you a general overview but does not dive into all the specific details. That comes next.
Research the ‘how to’ – Google and YouTube are your friends. With almost any problem you are facing, there has probably been someone who has already solved it. Learn from those people. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel.
To better understand, watch multiple videos on the same topic, look for common advice, and synthesize the information. I would watch different channels, from both professional and other DIYers, and study their techniques to learn how to do a task and see how I could avoid common mistakes.
Writer Josh Kaufman shares similar advice in his TED Talk: The first 20 hours — how to learn anything.
“Get three to five resources about what it is you’re trying to learn. It could be books, it could be DVDs, it could be anything, but don’t use those as a way to procrastinate.”
Experts and people who’ve solved the problem you are facing before are excellent sources of information. Talking with someone with experience can help you cut through the clutter and shorten your learning curve. I am lucky my dad is a contractor, so I was able to ask him a lot of questions. You could also ask a friend who did a similar project or a professional at Home Depot for advice.
Once you’ve gone through a few resources and asked for advice on a topic, it’s time to get started. Remember, your goal isn’t to become an expert; it is to learn enough to give you a solid game plan.
Attempt, Reflect, & Adapt – The most valuable learning comes from experience. You can watch other people do something, but you don’t truly learn how to until you try it yourself.
I had all the tools I needed and was ready to get started. I sprayed the ceiling with water and started scraping, but it was hard work. The videos showed the ceiling material falling off easily, but any progress I made was a struggle. I completed one room like this and then reflected on how it went.
I knew something wasn’t quite right; it should’ve been a lot easier. Before I kept going, I did some more research. I discovered that my problem was likely caused by the popcorn ceiling already being painted rather than unfinished. The solution I found was to add vinegar to a water mixture and then spray the ceiling before scraping. I gave this a shot, and it worked! Scraping the ceilings became much more manageable, and the job went smoothly from then on.
An analogy for attempting, reflecting, and adapting is hitting golf balls on a driving range. There are two ways you could go about this. First, you could keep grabbing golf balls and hitting them mindlessly, without stopping to think and evaluate your performance. That is not an effective way to improve, yet many people approach work and problems like this.
Alternatively, stop and reflect on what happened each time you hit the ball if you want to improve. You can look at the ball flight path to understand why the ball flew the way it did. From there, you can make adjustments to your swing and course correct.
Complete the work – Once you’ve got an effective technique down, all that’s left is to finish the job. Along the way, you’ll likely encounter new challenges and make mistakes, but those are just more opportunities to learn and further expand your skills. With practice and repetition, you’ll improve both your abilities and confidence.
Keys To Go From Novice to Competent
While the process steps for solving new problems are straightforward, a few key ideas will help you on your learning journey.
Accept that it’s okay not to know how to do something right now – Why should there be any expectation that you know how to do something you have never tried before? Thinking that you should know how to do something is not helpful because you’ll end up beating yourself up over it. Instead, accept that not knowing is just part of the learning process.
Reframe the problem you are facing and add the word yet. Here is what this looks like:
- From: “I don’t know how to paint a room.”
- To: “I don’t know how to paint a room yet.”
‘Yet’ changes your internal narrative from simple acceptance to empowering belief. This narrative shift reflects a belief that you can learn and that it is only a matter of time until you do: AKA a growth mindset. You may not know how today, but in the future, you will.
Adopt a beginner’s mindset – Anytime you are starting a new job, there are so many new things to learn that you constantly feel like a beginner. But this is not a bad thing. On the contrary, retaining that feeling is essential for solving all problems.
When you are a beginner, you understand that you don’t know how to do something, and you have no choice but to open yourself up to learning. When you are accustomed to feeling like a beginner, you begin to approach all new problems with a curious mind. The process for solving new problems becomes ingrained in you.
After I finished scraping the ceiling, I had to follow the same process for learning how to paint rooms, change electrical outlets, install new lights, repair broken appliances, install shelving, mount a TV, and more. Feeling like a beginner primed my mind to look for what I needed to learn to solve each new problem.
Remember that you don’t have to become an expert – When the problems you are solving aren’t things you will be facing regularly, there isn’t a need to become an expert. Becoming an expert takes a lot of time and dedication, but you can still do a good job at a task as someone who is purely competent.
Skill acquisition has increasing marginal returns in the beginning. You can go from not being able to do something at all to becoming capable quite quickly. This idea is based on the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition, and a novice-to-expert table provides a useful reference guide that highlights the progression of skills.
Assess difficulty level – There will be times when you encounter a problem that is substantially beyond your skill levels or realize that it is more than you can take on yourself. While it is important to believe that you can figure things out, it is equally valuable to be aware of your situation’s reality and be willing to adapt.
After scraping the ceiling in one room, I realized that the rest of the house would take a long time if I tried to do it all myself. So my fiancée and I tag-teamed the job and came up with a system to complete it more quickly. However, when it came to applying the new knockdown texture, I realized from my research that it was beyond my abilities, and I lacked the necessary tools for the job. So my dad and brother, both contractors with plenty of experience doing this, agreed to help us complete that part of the job.
There is a balance between believing in yourself and knowing your limitations. Being willing to acknowledge when something is beyond your abilities will help you adapt and develop a new plan to solve the problem. And know that it is always okay to ask for help.
Every new problem is an opportunity to learn something new and gain experience. You can then draw on that experience to help you solve problems in the future. The more problems you solve, the more experience you acquire, and the more capable you become.
Whether you are taking on house projects, trying a new skill, or starting a new job, having no experience shouldn’t hold you back. You’ll be able to solve a lot more problems if you approach them with an open mind and willingness to figure it out.