Mastery is not only about getting better at your craft, but also about finding ways to eliminate the obstacles, distractions, and other annoyances that prevent you from working on your craft.

Top performers find ways to spend as much time as possible on what matters and as little time as possible on what doesn't. It is not someone else's responsibility to create the conditions for success.

You have to actively work to eliminate the things that don't matter from your workload. If you haven't figured out how to do that, you haven't mastered your craft.

There are many paths to mastery, and if you are persistent you will certainly find one that suits you.

But a key component in the process is determining your mental and psychological strengths and working with them.

To rise to the level of mastery requires many hours of dedicated focus and practice. You cannot get there if your work brings you no joy and you are constantly struggling to overcome your own weaknesses.

You must look deep within and come to an understanding of these particular strengths and weaknesses you possess, being as realistic as possible. Knowing your strengths you can lean on them with utmost intensity.

Once you start in this direction, you will gain momentum. You will not be burdened by conventions and you will not be slowed down by having to deal with skills that go against your inclinations and strengths. In this way, your creative and intuitive powers will be naturally awakened.

Since there is always another level to learn, mastery actually means you’re a master of what you know and an apprentice of what you don’t. In other words, we become masters of what is behind us and apprentices for what is ahead. This is why mastery is a journey.

when you can see mastery as a path you go down instead of a destination you arrive at, it starts to feel accessible and attainable.

Mastery is a journey, not a destination. True masters never believe they have attained mastery. There is always more to be learned and greater skill to be developed.

Mastery requires lots of practice. But the more you practice something, the more boring and routine it becomes.

Thus, an essential component of mastery is the ability to maintain your enthusiasm. The master continues to find the fundamentals interesting.

Mastery requires deliberate practice, and lots of it. But if you love it, you do it.

Mastery is the best goal because the rich can't buy it, the impatient can't rush it, the privileged can't inherit it, and nobody can steal it. You can only earn it through hard work.

In the end, mastery involves discovering the most resonant information and integrating it so deeply and fully it disappears and allows us to fly free.

True mastery transcends any particular art. It stems from mastery of oneself — the ability, developed through self-discipline, to be calm, fully aware, and completely in tune with oneself and the surroundings. Then, and only then, can a person know himself.

Mastering an art is like climbing a passion mountain; when you reach the top, the passion fades. So, keep learning.

Mastery is not a function of genius or talent. It is a function of time and intense focus applied to a particular field of knowledge. But there is another element, an X factor that Masters inevitably possess, that seems mystical but that is accessible to us all. Whatever field of activity we are involved in, there is generally an accepted path to the top. It is a path that others followed, and because we are conformist creatures, most of us opt for this conventional route. But Masters have a strong inner guiding system and a high level of self-awareness. What has suited others in the past does not suit them, and they know that trying to fit into a conventional mold would only lead to a dampening of spirit, the reality they seek eluding them.

And so inevitably, these Masters, as they progress on their career paths, make a choice at a key moment in their lives: they decide to forge their own route, one that others will see as unconventional, but that suits their own spirit and rhythms and leads them closer to discovering the hidden truths of their objects of study. This key choice takes self-confidence and self-awarenes–the X factor that is necessary for attaining mastery...

Mastering life is the process of moving from where you are to where you want to be.

Ah, mastery ... what a profoundly satisfying feeling when one finally gets on top of a new set of skills ... and then sees the light under the new door those skills can open, even as another door is closing.