#547 Why we all want to be what we aren’t
The normal want to be special
The special want to be normal
We all want to be what we aren’t
Because if you already are
How can you ever desire?
The normal want to be special
The special want to be normal
We all want to be what we aren’t
Because if you already are
How can you ever desire?
In his book The Art of Learning (and his podcast episodes with Tim Ferris), Josh Waitzkin, former chess player and martial artist, introduces the concept of “hidden reps” when learning something new:
I think that where the really potent, low-hanging fruit hanging in plain sight lie are in the thematic, are in breaking down the learning process into the core principles or themes you want to work on and doing reps of those. Those are just invisible to people in plain sight.
Josh Waitzkin on the Tim Ferris Podcast: https://tim.blog/2020/03/14/josh-waitzkin-transcript-412/
In other words, find “neglected skills“: situations you don’t often find yourself in and where you haven’t developed a lot of trust and confidence in your abilities yet.
Then isolate and practice them until you develop confidence and trust for that particular neglected skill.
For example, when working on his chess game, instead of practicing the “openings” like everybody else, Josh would isolate the “end games”(the final part of a chess match) and practice only these.
Most people wouldn’t think of doing that; they would always start at the opening (that’s where a chess match starts, after all) and practice the end game only as an afterthought, deep into their practice session when they had already spent all their energy on the opening.
By cutting out the opening entirely during practice sessions, Josh got a lot more “hidden reps” with the end game than his competitors, which led to a big competitive advantage.
This might seem obvious, but in my experience, it’s really quite counterintuitive not to start at the beginning when practicing a skill.
For example, when learning a new guitar piece, it feels strange not to start at the beginning but to pick out a difficult part and practice that over and over again. It’s not impossible, and many teachers will tell you to isolate difficult parts, but my (and many other students’) first instinct would always be to start at the top, over and over again.
Which begs the question:
Where else are we “starting from the top” over and over again, instead of finding and isolating the neglected skills?
Some examples of how I’m trying to integrate this principle into my life:
Neglected skills are everywhere. No matter what you’re trying to learn or achieve, creating the circumstances where you can identify and isolate them, then put in the hidden reps, will pay big dividends.
You got this.
Whether you feel like you got this or not…
You got this.
You can do this.
This is possible for you.
It has always been.
And it will always be.
Deep down, you know this.
And maybe today, you can start accepting it, too.
You feel excitement. Happiness. Anger. Sadness.
But you are not your excitement or happiness.
Because if you allow yourself to cling to the emotions you desire, you’ll have not choice but to identify with undesirable ones, like anger and sadness, too.
Thus, you feel excitement – until it fades.
You feel happiness – until it fades.
You feel anger – until it fades.
You feel sadness – until it fades.
No matter which emotion rises, feel it until it fades. You’re going to be fine either way.
When you realize nobody truly knows what they’re doing
Doesn’t that give you the freedom to say
Let me do this my way?
You can wait to start writing until that moment when the frustration builds up so much that not writing becomes unbearable.
But why wait for the pain if you could just write today?
After all, you’re not waiting to become a writer. You’re already a writer. You’re just not writing. Yet.
And all of that can change in one moment of deciding not to wait, but to write.
I can’t predict what will happen tomorrow – or even today.
But I do know that today, I resolve to write.
And tomorrow I resolve to write once again.
And that resolve has brought me to 439 consecutive days of writing.
439 days of writing, despite living in an unpredictable world.
439 days of realizing most obstacles are excuses.
439 days of proving that resolve can bring you pretty far.