Posts Tagged ‘mastery’

“You can’t do everything. But you can do one thing, and then another, and then another.” This was a quote from the book Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long Term Fullfillment and it’s a great point. Though in an age where with so many distractions and so many options it is something that is extremely difficult to do. Yet, the largest benefits usually come once you get really good at something. Musicians can play a tune once they master their instrument, a basketball player is able to consistently put the ball in the hoop, and an artist can control his hands precisely to make beautiful works of art. So how do does someone become great at something they do?

I hear a lot of people use the words gifted or talented when they discuss someone who is really good at something. It is true that some people have a certain disposition that allows them to excel quicker at something than others, but anyone can obtain these talents with enough dedication and practice.

Dedication

Focusing single heatedly on whatever it is you want to learn. To do so you will have to give up doing other things. However, I have found the benefit of doing something really well far out weighs the benefits of doing many things averagely. Dedicate a time to your activity and don’t let anything bother you. And definitely don’t multi-task. Multi-tasking has become popular in the last decade, but it is not efficient or effective. Once you dedicate your time, focus clearly only on that one thing.

I also recommend you choose the things you do very carefully. Since you will be spending a lot of time on something, it’s important to make sure that it is important to you. If it’s not, then you will be more likely to give it up and try something else. I have started a lot of activities on the spur only to give them up part way through. Its not that I didn’t enjoy some of them, but that time would probably have been better spent getting better at something I really cared about.

Practice

We have all heard the phrase “practice makes perfect”. My father must have told me this a thousand times as a kid. There is no doubt that the more time you spend doing an activity the better you will get at it. But putting in time practicing is only part of it. If you want to get good, and get good fast, then you need to practice in the most effective manner.

The easiest way to find this information will be in from the people who are the best in the field. Whether that be from a book or audio program or personal lessons. The time you spend finding good training materials, a good instructor, or the best methods will save you a lot of wasted time.

Stop Juggling Activities

I did this for a long time. There were so many thing I wanted to try that I ended up being able to do  bunch of things poorly. Having limited my focus to only a few, I now realize how much better it is to be good at a few.

When I was in college I choose to study Japanese. I was fascinated with the culture and really wanted to be able to speak the language. In the same language department I met a student who was taking Japanese, Chinese, and Russian all at the same time. I was very impressed. She was a very good student and defitely put in more time studying her three languages than I did with just my one. But at the end of that semester I was able to have simple conversations in Japanese where as she could only say a few words in each language. Even though she had put in more time than I had it was dispersed over three different languages and she received almost none of the benefits that studying just the one had yielded for me.

While I was in the US for the holiday season I had a chance to read a couple of books. One of them I found particularly interesting, but never got around to writing about it. Since the focus will be on Getting Fit in 30 Days, I am writing it now.

First off, in a world of instant checkout, drive-thrus, and get rich quick schemes, a book about lifelong devotion is a bit of a rarity. We all want the quick and short method to getting the things we want. In the book Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment, George Leonard makes the argument that not only does it take time, practice, and hard work to become a master, but that one will be much happier if they view life in this manner.

Leonard explains that when we learn something in the beginning everything is new and we tend to make a lot of progress. Then it all slows down and things become more difficult. The the next step is further than the last and more difficult to obtain. As we stop seeing results, we start to lose confidence and this is when many people give up.

He says that instead we should look at what ever we are trying to achieve as long term. That the doing and learning is more important than the final results (which will be obtained anyways). Then the long flat plateaus in between the climbs of progress, as he describes it, are enjoyable because we are focused on improving each part of what we do.

Being a martial artists myself, I understand the theory behind this and actually agree with Leonard. By viewing life this way, we have the chance to live in the moment. Whether you are playing your favorite game or are mowing the lawn, you are focused on trying to improve and do the best possible job you can. When we focus on only the end and the result (especially when it is something we don’t want to do), then we spend most of our lives looking towards the future and not really living for now.

I believe this is something that is quite difficult to do. Society encourages us to focus on finishing the task rather than doing the task. I have met only a few people who actually live this way.

The one that sticks out the most in my mind is Mr. Kawachi Kunihira, a swordsmith in Japan. I first met Kunihira when he visited the California for an honorary sword making exhibition and later had a chance to visit him in his house in Japan. He was an absolutely amazing character. Even though he was in his 60′s he had an amazing amount of energy and seemed to be fascinated by everything. Even after building swords for the majority of his life, he was absolutely fascinated by every aspect of them. As far as success, he is considered on of the top sword makers and utmost authorities on the subject in Japan. His work has been published in many journals as well as authored books.

In today’s busy world it is hard to slow down and enjoy all the things we are doing in our lives. As time seems to become more scarce this concept seems to become even harder to grasp. And maybe that is why it is even more important to try.

If you are looking for something to get you quick results, this is not the book. If you are looking for that might help make your life a little happier then it is definitely worth a read.