One time in my 10th grade math class, I asked another classmate (let’s call him Jared) if he could help me out with a math problem. To my dismay he side-eyed me and grumbled, “No, you learn best by yourself.” Now, that may sound like decent life advice, but I wasn’t looking for life advice at that time, I was looking for the answer to the question. Because obviously I tried to figure out the problem on my own already and couldn’t. What I’m trying to get at here is that asking for help is not “cheating” or “taking a shortcut” to reach your goals. In fact, it is an essential step in achieving basically any skill you’ve ever tried to get good at. So, screw you Jared… I’ll ask somebody else.
Now, why should you listen to me? Well, here’s where I would lie and back up my argument by saying I solved the question thanks to getting help from a different classmate or my teacher, but I didn’t. As a result, I got a rather not so parent-approving grade in that class. By following Jared’s incredibly intellectual method, I tried the problem over and over again by myself, repeating the same mistakes, which ultimately led me to the same result. This process, according to Einstein (who I hold as a more credible guy to take advice from than Jared, sorry not sorry), is the definition of insanity! Individual effort can only go so far without support from somebody more knowledgeable than yourself to introduce new ideas and ways of doing things.
The Other Steps
In short, though getting help from an expert, website, book or YouTube video is a great and almost necessary part of becoming better at something (especially if you want to get good at it fast), in my personal experience, it is just one step of the process. The other key aspects of achieving any goal would be time, taking breaks, failure, consistent reflection, and most importantly, repetition. With the more time and effort you put in, it is basically a universal law (don’t quote me on that) that you will gradually become more skilled and experienced at whatever it is that you seek to improve at.
Furthermore, failures and even regression, though very painful and discouraging, are simply a natural part of the process of learning. The product of setbacks when coupled with reflection and repetition is a formula you can use to figure out what it is that you’re doing wrong, what it is that you are doing right, and therefore how to do things differently to get a different (hopefully better) result the next time around.
TL;DR: Getting help from someone or something else other than yourself isn’t a shortcut, it’s an essential part of the learning process if you want to reach your goals faster.