| Practice being terrible. I think a lot of us have some idea of what "practice" means, but very few of us do it. Instead, we "play to win". Because it feels like practice but it really isn't. For example, a lot of folks want to get better at basketball, so they play pickup games. Which is great. But isn't enough to get really good. You're trying to win at that game. So you won't do the necessary things to learn new skills. And the necessary things is to look like an idiot while you try a new move, a fadeaway, dribbling with your weak hand, etc. I think that applies to most of life. We sort of think we're trying to get better, but really we're in all these games to win. So to get better at this, I think it's necessary to just shift to more things that look like real practice with no intent on outcome. Give yourself chores like: I'm going to write an article every week for 6 months in different styles that match authors I look up to. (Maybe you publish these, maybe you don't.) There's no winning in that statement (except the part about showing up every day). Many of us are going to resist and try to turn the exercise into: I'm going to try and grow my blog subscribers by X over 6 months. No, that's a game about winning. Get back to just practice. When we understand what practice really feels like, the growth mindset comes more naturally: Ah yes, I'm used to sucking at something but I show up and practice and see how I get better. Another exercise: practice being terrible in public. Give yourself quotas show off how bad you are at the beginning. Like publish yourself learning something something. Twitch stream learning to code. Publish those first awful videos you edit. Every. Day. |
A best ever at something doing the most simple drills for an hour.
I have in my head I suck at basketball but Curry takes more practice shots in that video than I have in my life.