Hey,<\/p>\n
One of the most important questions about learning, for me, is how
\nto become insanely good at something.<\/p>\n
Sure, passing tests, and getting decent grades with less studying is
\nadmirable. Particularly if you want to have a life outside of your
\nhomework.<\/p>\n
But in the end, accomplishing big things requires more than just
\ngetting an A+ on an exam. It’s about becoming really good at rare
\nand valuable skills.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
The key to mastery is largely getting more deliberate practice than
\nanyone else. If you keep the challenge level high, feedback regular
\nand practice longer, you’ll do better.<\/p>\n
This view of mastery means that the basis of getting insanely good
\nat anything must start with a habit. If it doesn’t, how can you
\npossibly extend your efforts long enough to see results?<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
The Mastery Habit<\/p>\n
The process for getting good at anything, in my view, can be split
\ninto just three steps:<\/p>\n
1. Create a baseline level of involvement.
\n2. Sustain your baseline exposure.
\n3. Continually reinvent the habit to get even better.<\/p>\n
Step One: Create a Baseline<\/p>\n
Let’s say you want to master a programming language. The first step
\nis simply to get enough constant exposure to the language. If you
\naren’t writing code in that language every day, you don’t have
\na baseline.<\/p>\n
When I made it my goal to learn French, I made an effort to have
\nconversations in French every single day. Sometimes I would fail,
\nbut by setting this as my goal, I helped create a baseline that was
\nstrong enough that I ended up continuing to use a lot of French even
\nafter I left France.<\/p>\n
The best way to build a baseline is to start a really easy 30-Day
\nTrial and grow it from there.<\/p>\n
Starting with 3 hours per day of practice is probably unrealistic.
\nI’m sure there are a few incredibly dedicated people who can pull
\nthis off, but for most people it’s simply too drastic a change to
\nsuccessfully implement.<\/p>\n
A better method would be to start with just a baseline of 10 minutes
\nper day. Once this baseline becomes a habit, it is easier to adjust
\nupdwards.<\/p>\n
Step Two: Sustain Your Baseline<\/p>\n
The problem with the first step is that many people confuse
\nmomentum for habits. They get really excited about a new idea,
\nresolve to practice constantly, then give up three months later.<\/p>\n
The second step is to sustain your baseline over longer periods of
\ntime, so that it becomes automatic. If you keep this up long enough,
\nyou can eventually reach the point where a break from practice feels
\nweird in your life.<\/p>\n
After writing for five years with various baselines, when I take two
\nweeks off for a vacation, I can already feel myself itching to begin
\nwriting again.<\/p>\n
Getting to this point isn’t easy, but it requires you to emphasize
\nconsistency first. Keeping a low minimum that you ALWAYS stick to is
\nvastly better than a higher average that you rarely stick to. The
\nreason is that the first will most likely continue as a habit and
\ngrow, while the second is too unstable for the future.<\/p>\n
Step Three: Reinvent the Habit<\/p>\n
The third step is to reinvent the habit continuously. Mastery is
\ndifficult precisely for this third step, that it both requires
\npatient continuity of effort as well as discontinuity of
\napplication.<\/p>\n
Once you’ve invested a few months into the baseline of the habit,
\nthat’s a good time to try adjusting the habit to explore more
\nchallenging aspects of the skill.<\/p>\n
If you’ve been speaking Spanish, try writing Spanish. If you’ve been
\nwriting blog articles, write prose. If you’ve been painting
\nlandscapes, try portraits.<\/p>\n
The goal isn’t to destroy your baseline, which needs to remain in
\nplace. Rather, it’s to be creative and challenging with what’s left.<\/p>\n
Keep reinventing the mastery habit and you’ll hit fewer plateaus in
\nyour skill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hey, One of the most important questions about learning, for me, is how to become insanely good at something. Sure, passing tests, and getting decent grades with less studying is admirable. Particularly if you want to have a life outside of your homework. But in the end, accomplishing big things requires more than just getting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=522"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":523,"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522\/revisions\/523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}