Finding Love in the Negative
"Do what you are good at", is the advice, well-intentioned perhaps, limited at best. We all want to feel like we are good at something and this can cause us to limit our capabilities enormously as we start to favor what we are 'good at' over what we need to learn.
This favoritism we show what we enjoy and are good at comes with an opportunity cost attached and the more we do what we like, the less goes into what we do not. This seems great to begin with until thinking through what we are actually wanting to do.
From nothing comes something
If starting a skill from zero, it takes very little effort to begin improvement as the low-level points are easily reachable. As we progress though, the better we get at something the more investment it takes to improve further. This is the law of diminishing returns at play and at some point, 100 percent investment will see zero improved results. It is easy to see when there is one skill.
But, there is very rarely ever one skill involved in the areas that are important to us, they are clustered and to be the best we can be in some field, it is likely that we have to raise all skills to an adequate level. If we focus at what we are good at, we are going to ignore what we are not.
The negative path
The most efficient way to become very good at something is by focusing on weaknesses but, this is counter-intuitive as most of our intuitions have been trained to 'focus on what you are good at'. This is in my opinion, terrible advice as it does not explain the nuances and caveats and most people will not spend the time in discovery of them.
If a core field is taken and broken into the skill sets and then individual parts we can get a more granular view of the requirements in order to satisfy potential. We will be able to identify and highlight where our weaknesses lay and then take an active role in closing the skill gaps necessary.
But to close one of these gaps sufficiently we are going to have to do something we don't want to do and that is, something we are not good at. And, if we are already quite strong in most of the other areas, the temptation to ignore weakness is high.
The easy new, the valuable difficult
I often hear the phrase spoken 'I love to learn new things' and have found that most of the time, this is not actually true as in general, it is only used when learning something one expects to already be good at. Most people do not want to learn the things that are boring to them or they know are outside of their normal range.
This biased view hinders many people in many ways as the things that they really enjoy and want to excel at can never be raised to their full potential as the boring and difficult parts become increasingly ignored. Tying loving to learn to what one wants to be very good at means accepting that there are going to be times where investment must be applied to weaknesses. In sickness and in health as they say.
The butterfly effect
This means that within a skill set there is a mix of strengths and weaknesses and focusing on the weaknesses will compound against the strengths. But to do so one has to be willing to become a beginner again. This is difficult for many to come to terms with as for many, this beginner feeling is already uncomfortable, let alone in an area that has generally high proficiency.
But, doing this is how one has the possibility to become brilliant at something and can actually decrease the time and investment to do so. It is this increase across all sub-skills that develop high peaks with shallow troughs that really drives greatness. On top of this, there is another benefit.
Finding a new lover
Within these skill gaps is the potential to uncover areas that have laid dormant which means the potential to find new interest areas, new great loves. Loves in the negative. These can splinter off and create entire new paths to explore that were previously hidden from sight behind the bias and preference of what one is already good at.
I have found through experience that most do not do this however, they are not really interested in being great at something. They are however interested in getting a return on their investment but rarely think about where they are actually investing. This traverses many areas of course but in a world of instant gratification, how does one expect to develop skills of value let alone, find their passions?
Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]
Very true. You are only as strong as your weakest link. We all know where our skills are lacking and very rarely spend time improving them. One has to be an all rounder to succeed and not top heavy as such.
Look at Steemit for me as an example. I would never have dreamed in a 100 years I would be doing this. I came out of my comfort zone and I am enjoying it. Just goes to show that anything is possible. I am even reading your poetry lol.
I remember pressing the post button for the first time here. It wasn't so easy. I also remember when I have posted more controversial topics, or more personal things. It is not natural to me however, it has been rewarding in many ways.
I think it is good for us to get out of the comfort one occasionally.
Your confidence in the face of challenges is driven by the ability to let go of the negativity that holds so many people back.
There is a path to happiness through negativity, don't be too harsh in your view. Positive and negative are judgements made, not necessarily truth.
Hmmm...true. The truth is what is. So are they relative?
I'ld like to object to this
Practice should make perfect, perfect in this term means a continuous improvement of result-infinitely-and this takes time and constant hard work, yes i agree that
But why not say it can help us take on that which we think we are good at to the maximum potential it can be. Look at gold, if gold had been processed halfway because its gold anyway and everyone knows its gold, maybe it wont be as much appreciated as it is now. But look at gold when its been beaten through degrees and degrees of heat, it comes out beautiful, something of value.
Because an eagle has a strong beak does not mean it should peck wood.
What im saying is, it is good for one to diversify and acquire skills, at the end of the day humans can be good at anything they work hard at,but you can only be best at one thing and good at many
I have to admit this is exactly as you have said
You are looking at a skill as being only one skill though, like gold. Useful skills are rarely like this, they are groups of skills, like groups of muscles. To overwork one doesn't make up for the underwork of others. It isn't about having a massive diversity of fields, it is about all of the skills layered within one specialty. You may want to only practice with the sword but, there is a skill involved just to draw it from the scabbard.
How much i learn here everyday
It is clearer now. Thank you
everything new or what we do not know terrifies, but they are necessary fear that we must face!
This is so true
It happens with all of us. We often focus on the things at which we are little good. And then work on them and see no visible results. Which results in us being sad.
The trick is to be conscious of the effect. And work on skills which you are passionate about. And measure growth in long intervals.
If you know how the small nuances work then you can make them work for you.
I love how you develop talking, and you are right. We rarely face challenges or new projects, sometimes the new is scary.
Doing what we know well is easy ... Doing something new and facing the unknown is a challenge !!
I must admit, I'm guilty of claiming to love learning new things, but only meaning things that I find interesting or expect to be good at. I think you raise a good point about being hindered by this attitude. It prevents me from mastering things that I do enjoy, as I always avoid the parts of tasks that I don't think I will succeed in.
Now I have to focus on learning things I don't like. I'm probably going to do it for the wrong reasons-- to better myself at things I do like, but still it's better than not doing it at all.
Is it the wrong reason though?
I would argue that the right reason would be more in the interest of learning for learnings sake, and the persuit of knowledge. Learning something to be better at something else may be a start, but it won't lead to as deep an understanding of the subject.
Indeed. The less we allow ourselves to experience, the less we develop more skills that could help us in many aspects as a wider scope of experience learned skills can be applied in a wider scope of fields. Choices choices. People more often than not imprison themselves out of a fear of sorts