Gaining Expertise with Joy

 How focusing on our messy parts creates a joyful learning experience...

Let’s talk about that thing that we love to do. Love to do like we loved to jump in puddles when we were small. What makes it fun? What gets in the way of that fun?

There’s nothing that makes a walk in the park feel like a slog through deep mud than being inefficient at what you do, no matter how much you love it. Students know this; think about all the times you’ve had to learn things but it just had no flow. 

How do we learn things? How do we make them flow and learn them efficiently?

One thing we know is that there’s a big connection between the brain and the hand. Hands-on experience is regarded as one of the best ways to learn. It’s also a luxury for many people. If we write things down, we may not have to look at them again; the act of writing them down efficiently commits them to our brains. However, if we have dyslexia, dysgraphia, arthritis, or just a cramp in our hand, wouldn't we rather just write the things that we most need to remember?

This is an important distinction and one that makes the difference between people who really know what they’re doing, and people who are experts in excess. People who do things very well, and efficiently are known to be happier. They have more time to take care of themselves, sleep, and enjoy their families. 

There are a lot of experts out there with a bunch of superfluity in their expertise because they did reps in that excessive, messy stuff. If you love what you do, pay attention and focus on your work. Much of our society preaches that we must work and work and work. The more we work, the better we will get. Yet when we work and practice, we tend to become mindless, going end to end and missing details. We don’t want to gloss over the rough spots; those are what we want to work most. The parts of our craft which we know well are easy. The parts that we don’t do well don’t get the proper attention because we are often too tired and inattentive to deal with them. 

Doing our reps on our craft in this way works lots of different parts for sure. Yet just as many errors are repeated as the good stuff. That sure sounds inefficient to me; what do you think? 

10,000 hours supposedly makes a person an expert. That’s not the type of expert I'd want to be because it won't make a person very happy. The type of practice outlined above sets up a person to spend a lot of time chasing their dream instead of with family and friends.

Take those same 10,000 hours and find the spots that really need work. Do reps on those spots and do them with intention. Whatever needs to work, work that! It’s a lot less tiring and overwhelming than it will be to deal with the problem later.

Put it this way: there are a lot of experts out there with unwanted superfluity in their expertise because they did reps in that excessive, messy stuff. If you love what you do, pay attention and focus on your work. Get excited to improve the parts that need work and they'll get better and better.

✨HONE YOUR CRAFT and you’ll OWN YOUR CRAFT. ✨