{"id":6451,"date":"2016-07-12T11:08:50","date_gmt":"2016-07-12T18:08:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/?p=6451"},"modified":"2019-05-06T04:50:36","modified_gmt":"2019-05-06T12:50:36","slug":"get-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/12\/get-better\/","title":{"rendered":"A Simple Strategy for Getting Better at Things"},"content":{"rendered":"

How often do you catch yourself saying, \u201cI wish I were better at _____.\u201d Maybe you want to be better at exercising regularly, your relationships or your work. Maybe you\u2019d like to be more artistic, athletic or multilingual.<\/p>\n

Getting better at things requires work. It doesn\u2019t happen too often that you can immediately get better at something with a trick or gimmick. However, I think a lot of people don\u2019t improve simply because they don\u2019t know how.<\/p>\n

In this article I want to outline a simple strategy to get better at anything. It does require work. But it can help simplify the process of thinking about improvement.<\/p>\n

Is it a Habit or a Skill?<\/h2>\n

Most of the things you want to get better at are largely habits, skills or some mixture of the two.<\/p>\n

Exercising is a habit. Although there is some skill in exercising well, that\u2019s not the weak link for most people. Most people know *how* to run, move or work out, they just don\u2019t do it as much as they\u2019d like. When you find yourself wanting to do something more regularly or consistently, you\u2019re trying to improve a habit.<\/p>\n

Speaking another language is a skill. You may need a habit of practicing, but it\u2019s not enough to just will yourself to speak French or Japanese\u2014you need to learn how to do it first. When you don\u2019t know *how* to do something, or don\u2019t know how to do it well enough, what you\u2019re trying to improve is a skill.<\/p>\n

Most things you\u2019ll want to improve will have a mix of habits and skills. Maybe you want to read more books. On the one hand, reading is a habit\u2014you need to read more. But it\u2019s also a skill\u2014vocabulary, fluency and subject familiarity all influence how quickly and deeply you can read.<\/p>\n

The first step is deciding whether what your trying to improve is mostly a habit or mostly a skill. A good rule of thumb is that if your main problem is with doing something you already know how to do, but doing it consistently, that\u2019s probably a habit. If your main problem is not knowing how to do something well enough, that\u2019s probably a skill.<\/p>\n

How to Get Better at Habits<\/h2>\n

Improving a habit has three main parts: formulating the desired behavior, conditioning the habit and maintaining it once it has formed.<\/p>\n

Step One: Picking the Habit<\/h3>\n

The first step is to clearly articulate what you\u2019re trying to improve. You want to replace the vague sense of unease that maybe you should be better at something with a decision to improve something specific.<\/p>\n

A good habit should be something you do regularly. It should happen either every day or after a particular context or trigger (right after work, every time you speak to someone, when you wake up). If it\u2019s a habit of absence (quitting smoking, giving up junk food) it should include some concrete alternative to fill the vacuum.<\/p>\n

Some examples of vague improvements turned into concrete habits:<\/p>\n