I just got something about effort and practice that I hadn’t grokked before.
The traditional mindset, the one most of us have grown up being told, is that practice is “hard” but slacking and trying to cope is “easy.”
In fact, it’s the other way around. Slacking is hard. Expecting yourself to perform well even when you’re only putting in half the time investment is asking yourself to achieve an impossible task, and it’s stressful as hell. It’s like saying “I should be able to win this duel with one hand tied behind my back.” Trying to do everything in half the time is an extra, unnecessary challenge. You’re demanding much more efficient work of yourself—possibly because you think you’re “smart” and you “ought” to be able to do it.
By contrast, practice is easy. It’s giving yourself the luxury of enough time to work at your own pace and take your time until you have mastery. It means you don’t have to worry about hurrying up to finish so that you can get back to something else. It means you give yourself permission to be as dumb as you really are, instead of trying to keep up the facade that you’re twice as smart as you are and you can finish in half the time.
I just got something about effort and practice that I hadn’t grokked before.
The traditional mindset, the one most of us have grown up being told, is that practice is “hard” but slacking and trying to cope is “easy.”
In fact, it’s the other way around. Slacking is hard. Expecting yourself to perform well even when you’re only putting in half the time investment is asking yourself to achieve an impossible task, and it’s stressful as hell. It’s like saying “I should be able to win this duel with one hand tied behind my back.” Trying to do everything in half the time is an extra, unnecessary challenge. You’re demanding much more efficient work of yourself—possibly because you think you’re “smart” and you “ought” to be able to do it.
By contrast, practice is easy. It’s giving yourself the luxury of enough time to work at your own pace and take your time until you have mastery. It means you don’t have to worry about hurrying up to finish so that you can get back to something else. It means you give yourself permission to be as dumb as you really are, instead of trying to keep up the facade that you’re twice as smart as you are and you can finish in half the time.