Develop credibility, humility, and a love of learning using a simple phrase

In the modern economy, expertise, skills and knowledge are some of the best measures of your competence. Many of us are afraid to admit whenever there's something we don't know. Despite that, one of the most important skills we need in the age of information is the ability to say "I don't know" both to ourselves and to others.

First, being able to admit that you don't know something forces you to stay humble. Being honest with yourself and others by saying "I don't know" means that you don't overstate your area(s) of expertise. This prevents you from receiving false recognition, which prevents arrogance and over-inflation of the ego.

Being able to say "I don't know" also keeps you curious and ready to learn. I'm not sure how most people are, but personally, if I'm asked a question and I don't know the answer, it bothers me. I want to find out the answer and look it up. That kind of behaviour develops curiosity and a love for learning new things. All because I admitted to myself and whoever is asking me a question that I don't know the answer.

Most importantly, in the long term, saying "I don't know" will keep you from losing credibility. There's always pressure to be a "subject matter expert", as well as the pressure to provide immediate answers without knowing what you're talking about. What will likely happen in this situation is that you'll give inaccurate information.  The person who receives that inaccurate information will make decisions, act on that information, and suffer the consequences.  When they do, you'll be blamed for their failure and be thought of as unreliable or worse, a liar.

Yes, it's important to be knowledgeable and skilled.  It's important to be able to answer questions about your field of expertise.  This is what competence in any field looks like. However, no matter how competent you are, there will always be something that you won't know. And that's all right. We're now in a world where almost all of human knowledge can be accessed almost instantaneously using a device in your pocket. You're better off saying "I don't know. I'll give you an answer as soon as I find out."

How to Stay "Motivated"

Just to be clear I'm not a fan of "motivation" to help someone stick to whatever activity it is that they want to stick to.  Motivation can be OK to get you started but not really the best at getting you going when things get difficult.  Discipline and having an overall view of why you're doing something will always be better than looking at motivational quotes and videos on social media.

That said, for those who really want to stay "motivated", I would say that the best way is to constantly look for what you're not good at and finding ways to improve it.  Set an achievable goal and work on that weakness.

Let's take martial arts as an example.  If you think that you've gotten good at punches, make a goal to make your kicks better.  From that goal you can pick an aspect of kicking that you can improve.  You can try to improve your hip mobility and leg flexibility to kick higher; or maybe try to improve the speed of your kicks; or develop the reaction time to use your kicks as intercepting counter-attacks; or make the accuracy of your kicks better.

You get the idea.  The point is, be honest with yourself and find out what your weaknesses are. Then set a goal to improve on those weaknesses by breaking them up in smaller sub-goals.  Completing those smaller tasks will help you see that you're progressing and the pursuit of those "small wins" can be very helpful in keeping someone motivated.

Excellence Means You Can't Live a "Balanced Life"

In a previous post, I outlined the simple, 2-step formula to become good at anything:

1) Practice a lot
2) Put in a lot of conscious effort to what you're practicing

Here's a revised version of the formula, if you want to become THE BEST at anything:

1) Practice exponentially more than before
2) Practice with conscious effort and nearly singular focus

3) Be lucky

Assuming you have the luck required, you will also need to drastically increase the amount of practice you do.  Because of the increased amount of practice required, you'll have to sacrifice time for other things: social life, sleep, time with family, leisure activities, etc.  You are focused almost entirely on whatever it is you're trying to be the best at.

This is true no matter what profession or field you want to become the best at.  Whether you want to become the most renowned neurosurgeon, the funniest stand-up comedian, an Olympic gold medalist, the most successful CEO, an elite professional hockey player, the most published and cited academic, or a world-champion MMA fighter, you will have terrible "work-life balance".  You'll need to sacrifice a lot of time not only to reach the pinnacle of your field but also to stay at the elite level.

This goes beyond the level of a hobby. You can't clock out at 5pm. Having the goal of being the best at something for a certain amount of time will come at the expense of other things in your life. If the concept of "work-life balance" is important to you, you will never become part of the elite in your field.  The truth is, at one point or another, we all wanted to be excellent something.  Becoming excellent requires an unbalanced lifestyle. For most of us, living that way for a long time is unsustainable.

We Are NOT Created Equal

This is a follow up on the previous piece on how to get good at anything.

The premise of practicing with full conscious effort will definitely get you as far as you potentially can in any given field. However, there are limitations to how far each individual can get because we are not born with the same genetic potential and predispositions.

Some people have the genetic predisposition to have more fast-twitch muscle. Some are more likely to have certain types of addictions. Other individuals are more likely to get certain kinds of cancer. Some will be born with missing limbs. Some have genes that cause them to have osteoporosis and arthritis before the age of 40. Others will be predisposed to have higher muscular endurance and a higher pain threshold. Some people will be born to be potentially 7 feet tall while others won't grow taller than 4 feet.

I could quit my day job, train for 8 hours a day and try to get faster at sprinting for the next 4 years. Despite the 10,000 hours of dedicated training I will never even come close to catching a retired, "out-of-shape" Usain Bolt in a 100 meter dash. Although I might be able to outdo him in other things (here's hoping any way).

 

Bottom line: constant practice with conscious effort will make you better at any skill. However, there is an upper limit that we can get to for each field, be it sports, intellectual pursuits, martial arts, music, or entrepreneurship.

Guess what! Life isn't fair. Every individual will have certain biological advantages over other people in certain fields while having disadvantages in others. Despite what any idealist with their heart in the right place will tell you, we are not all created equal. What's important is that we give everyone the equal opportunity to find, acquire and develop the skills that best fit with their strengths.

How to Get Good at Anything

It's a very simple formula.  Simple, but not easy.

To gain skills, be it playing a musical instrument, sports, stand-up comedy, acting, martial arts, math, languages, computer programming, public speaking, video editing, or even entrepreneurship, there is a very simple formula if you want to get better at any skill:

1) Practice a lot
2) Put in a lot of conscious effort to what you're practicing

The first point, you've heard before.  The "magic number" of 10,000 hours has been thrown around as the minimum needed to master a skill.  While it's been argued that this magic number is more or less legit, the point is, to get somewhat good at a skill, you need to have a lot of repetitions.  Without the practice, you won't get better.

What's more important though is the second point. You can "practice" something for 16 hours a day. If you are not consciously making the effort to practice whatever you're doing without trying to do it correctly, you're wasting your time. By practicing something without effort or without thinking for long periods of time, you'll just end up making yourself worse at that skill and develop bad habits. Instead, you need to go through the correct progressions, acknowledge that you made mistakes during practice and learn how to avoid them in the future.

Really you're just trying to find ways to be better than you were since the last time you practiced.



That's it.  No special shortcuts, no simple hacks.  Just put in time and conscious effort.