{"id":927,"date":"2009-04-24T10:00:07","date_gmt":"2009-04-24T17:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/24\/aggressive-learning\/"},"modified":"2019-04-28T13:07:43","modified_gmt":"2019-04-28T21:07:43","slug":"aggressive-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/24\/aggressive-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"Aggressive Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you want to succeed, pick an easy target. If you want to improve, pick an impossibly hard target. Success in a goal and improvement are often opposite paths, so if you aren\u2019t clear on which you\u2019re trying to pursue, you may end up failing at both.<\/p>\n

I have a habit for getting in over my head. I started this blog when I was 17, without qualifications or experience. I recently competed in several entrepreneurship competitions against MBA and PhD students, although I\u2019m a 3rd-year undergraduate. Now, I\u2019m going to live in a country where I don\u2019t speak the language<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m mentioning this not to brag, but to point out that I was unsuccessful at almost all of these. This blog has had mild success, but that\u2019s after three years of work, and I\u2019m often surpassed by newer <\/em>blogs such as Zen Habits<\/a>, The Happiness Project<\/a> and The Art of Nonconformity<\/a>. My team lost every entrepreneurship competition we attended. My first few months in France will probably be a complete butchering of their beautiful language.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m only mentioning a few cases, but the list of my failures is longer than the list of my accomplishments.<\/p>\n

Improvement Comes from Failure<\/h2>\n

I set goals to be successful frequently. If I write a new e-book today, I have reasonable expectations of how much income it will generate. I usually try to innovate incrementally, so I learn a few things and improve each time.<\/p>\n

But that is only an incremental improvement. If you want to make a leap in your abilities, you need to put yourself in an environment where you\u2019re struggling to keep up. In those situations, success is unlikely, but you learn so much that your reach is much further for every other goal you set.<\/p>\n

Choose: Achievable Success or Aggressive Learning<\/h2>\n

Don\u2019t confuse success and improvement. Working towards success is a worthwhile goal, and it is often more rewarding. If your aim is to simply accomplish a goal within your abilities, that\u2019s perfectly fine.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m starting a new writing project this week. My goal is to be successful, and to earn some additional income to pay the bills. I\u2019ll learn incrementally, and I\u2019m fine with that. I\u2019m also setting a fitness goal to get back to my former weight of 160-170 lbs. I\u2019d like to achieve this and see a boost in my fitness, but I don\u2019t expect to have any tremendous gains in experience that will revolutionize my workouts.<\/p>\n

You definitely shouldn\u2019t set out to make the goal of every project a radical shift in learning. You need to pick and choose which goals you will set achievable goals for, and which you will force yourself into aggressive learning environments.<\/p>\n

Placing Yourself in a Heavyweight Division<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s not enough to set harder goals. That only makes failure more likely, it doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019ll work any harder or learn any more. If I set a goal to double my income in a year or double my income in a month, the latter doesn\u2019t inspire me to do 12x the amount of work.<\/p>\n

If you want to be a better boxer, you can\u2019t just set higher training goals. You have to spar against tougher opponents. If you change the division you\u2019re fighting in, your body\u2019s defense mechanisms will kick in. A steep learning curve can\u2019t be self-enforced, you need to be put in a context where it is forced upon you.<\/p>\n

For my last eight months, my heavyweight division was competing in graduate-level new venture competitions. Our entire team lost a lot of sleep, failed consistently and continuously and had many moments of self-doubt and frustration. But, being pitted against people with far more experience and resources also allowed me to learn a tremendous amount.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m taking the same approach when learning to speak French. I\u2019m working to improve my French skills incrementally during the next four months. However, I know that the true bulk of learning will come when I\u2019m placed in an environment with native French speakers.<\/p>\n

Finding Your Heavyweight Division<\/h2>\n

The key to radical improvements is your environment, not your personality or ambition. Psychological studies such as the Milgram Experiments<\/a> and the Stanford Prison Experiment<\/a> demonstrate the importance of context. In different contexts, the same people can be brave and heroic, or apathetic and small.<\/p>\n

Finding an environment that will promote aggressive learning over short-term success isn\u2019t always easy. But I think there are a few ways you can approach it:<\/p>\n