In this day and age, you never know what the working world has in mind for you. The economy is so volatile right now, what was once a stable job can be taken away from you in a heartbeat. This is why we are seeing so many people leave the traditional workforce and go out independently. If you are someone that is good with your hands, there are ample opportunities available, one being as an appliance repair technician.
How to Learn a New Skill
Set Your Goals – What are your trying to achieve with this new skill? If you are starting a new career, then the goal should be to master the essential skills to set yourself up for success.
Understanding Your Skill Set – Before starting any training, you need to be realistic with yourself about what you can and cannot do. You need to identify your weaknesses so they can be worked on and turned into a strength. You can also turn your strengths into a specialty skill that you specifically market to.
Identifying Barriers – As you start out on this new journey, it is important to identify any possible barriers that may set you back. This could be anything from a learning disability to problems scheduling a babysitter. Do you have enough money to take classes and continue to pay household bills? Are you set for transportation? We must identify them all and devise a game plan to address them.
Build One Skill at a Time – When you are learning a new skill set, you are literally starting from the bottom up. The idea here is to learn a basic skill that can be expanded upon. There is a philosophy of 80/20, meaning you accomplish 80 percent of your goals from 20 percent of your learning. That same philosophy holds true here, as you will have a base set of skills to expand into different areas of appliance repair. Over time, you will find something that truly grabs you, which brings us to our next point.
Prioritize Your Development – There are obviously many directions you can take in this industry. Having said that, you may find that there are certain areas of repair where you excel and love, while there are others you find overly challenging and do not enjoy. You will still need to learn those skills, but you can expand upon the area that you truly enjoy, making that your specialty.
Practice, Practice, Practice – One of the benefits of using our in-person training is that you can practice without risk, meaning you are not learning in a trial-by-error method that is employed with online training. Our students are in class with an instructor learning the skills of this trade. This is the time to make a mistake, not when you are repairing a $5,000 stove for a customer.
Learn from Your Mistake – Mistakes will happen, but you just need to learn from them so you never duplicate them again. When you make a mistake, backtrace your steps to figure out where you went wrong so you do not repeat it. More importantly, recognize the issue that led to the misdiagnosis so you are not fooled again.
Ready to start a new career? If you are thinking about a career in appliance repair, we would love to have you as a student in our academy. If you have questions, give us a call today at 888-296-2383, or you can fill out our online contact form (click here). If you are ready to register for one of our upcoming appliance repair training classes, click here.
