Such is the way of the world these days it can be difficult for many people to forge a career out of a hobby of theirs. We are in a position where we can make some money on the side from our hobbies however and the internet has given us the chance to sell our wares or use our hobbies as a way of making money.

I was chatting to a group at a nightschool recently with master craftsman Ron Forrester and they were asking him if it was possible to become a master craftsman if they had already embarked on a career. Ron seemed confident that they could, as did I and if you want to change the path of your career and do what you love, here is how to go about it.

Spare Time Dedication

If you are not dedicated to craftwork then you may as well continue in your career and let go of this dream, if you are dedicated then you need to spend every piece of spare time that you have in the pursuit of mastering your craft. This means that once you finish the day job, you get home as soon as possible and begin to work on whatever project it is that you are doing. Sacrifice plays an important role in mastering your craft and if you really want to achieve this position, your free time will be the first thing to go.

Learning

You should be learning as much as you possible can about your craft including different styles and techniques and you should be constantly looking to broaden your knowledge in this field. The internet is an amazing resource and one which can help you to find a vast amount of information on all kinds of different areas of specialization. If you are truly committed to mastering your craft then it is not just in the practice that you will become the best but also in the theoretic side of things too.

Open Criticism

In order to perfect your craft you must be prepared to not only accept criticism but actively invite it from friends and family. The only way in which you can become the best is to iron out any weaknesses which you may have, in order to do that, you must first know what they are.

Expectation

Do not expect to go from zero to a master craftsman overnight, this will take years and years of training, studying, trying, failing and succeeding before you can ever consider yourself a master of your craft and you need to have the expectation of this so that you do not feel disappointed after just a few short years when you have not yet achieved this status. To be a master of anything requires a large amount of dedication, sacrifice, commitment and perseverance and you are going to need to have all of these if you are to succeed.