Toxic culture of "success mindset"...
...and some poison in becoming "the best" at something
There is a common saying that you need to spend 10 000 hours on mastering a skill, to become a world-class performer. It is true. But this is not the whole truth. And how would you call someone telling you just the part of the truth?
There was a car accident yesterday and the driver got admitted to hospital with minor injuries. Would it matter, if the newspaper would omit the fact that he was driving after a few shots?
A true statement without enough context could become "falsy". Our 10,000 hours story is a "falsy" one too. So what are the missing important facts?
What is often overlooked, is that you will hate any practice after 100 hours - if you just keep pushing. Our brain is not capable of doing a monotone task that requires effort to do right.
Your brain would quickly learn how to optimize the effort required and you will NEVER progress.
The upside starts here!
Ok, enough of this negativity. Let's see what we can do now with this new knowledge!
What your brain actually needs to learn and master a new skill?
The human brain is designed by nature to optimize its energy spend. You need to keep remembering this, as energy saving is one of the most important processes in your body.
This organ that consumes up to 20% of your oxygen, needs to really think-twice, or ... think-half, to stay competitive in the nature of things.
Each time you do a repetitive task, it creates a "quick thinking path" that is a good enough simulation of reality to survive in good health... and stops learning.
To learn, you need a variety.
To stay sane, you need variety of inputs
Ever heard about sensory deprivation? Experiments in pools with perfect temperature and water density for a human body to "float" inside, have shown that the brain without external stimulus goes.. crazy. Starts to hallucinate, starts to create various sensations that are non-existent.
Does it differ much from a student sitting by his desk, learning from books for 4 hours straight every night?
So lesson one: provide multiple learning environments for yourself. Mix them often. Stay away from being "bored"! Once you get bored, your brain is back at energy-saving mode and you stop making any progress!
What do successful people actually do?
They excel in certain areas. That is true! And this is often the only thing you see. But they are generalists too.
Did you know that almost all professional sports performers, practice other sports too? It may seem unproductive. They should focus on one sport only. On one muscle memory. Yet the best performers, seem to actually be very good at other sports too!
And they "waste" their time on other sports, instead of just training in the one they are best at!
Let's redefine a good and productive day...
A good and productive day is not the amount of pages of book you have read, or the amount of hours you spent working.
A good and productive day should count how many DIFFERENT things you did that all help you grow in the direction you choose!
If you ever wanted to become a professional in your field, but never had enough time or willpower to stick to some of the big goals you had, you probably didn't provided enough wariety.
A professional "real estate agent"
Personally, I am part software-engineer, part behavioral psychology enthusiast, part entrepreneur with experience bootstraping 7-figure businesses. I've spent most of my life programming computers and running IT projects, but the biggest challenges I found were in understanding the nature of human behavior and its triggers.