One more thought: Doing a lot of something doesn’t always make you better at it. There’s practice, and then there’s meaningful practice, and you need meaningful practice to get better, not just any practice.
For example, suppose you’re a poor writer and you’re trying to get better, so you set out to write more stories. However, after spending a lot of time writing, all that happens is that you’ve become better at writing poorly; you don’t suffer from writer’s block any more and can finish a story much more quickly than you used to, but each individual story isn’t much better than the ones you wrote before you practiced. What went wrong?
You’re the best chess player in your area, and you want to get better after getting trounced in a regional tournament. You play lots of chess games, and you rack up more and more wins against the people you always beat anyway. You then go to another regional tournament, and lose just as badly as you did before. What went wrong?
You’re the worst chess player in your area, and you want to get better. So you play a lot of chess games against your computer, but it seems that no matter what you do, you still lose, and you don’t seem to be any better at beating human players, either. What went wrong?
You want to be a better pianist, so you spend a lot of time practicing a number of songs on the piano until you’ve completely mastered them. This takes a long time. You then sit down to play a new song you’ve never played before and have a lot of trouble with it. It takes you just as long to master as all the others. What went wrong?
It’s pretty easy to practice something and never get any better, or only show improvement in a small part of a larger skill set.
You’re right, 3 hours a day practicing how to drop a piano on your toe will not help you learn to be a concert pianist, nor will 3 hours slamming the keyboard shut on your genitalia help improve your sex life. Between ‘self-awareness’, ‘willing to work’ and most particularly ‘willing to personally develop’ is the necessity to be willing and able to google ‘how to date’.
Something like that, yes. Or look at what successful daters are doing and acting kinda like what they do instead of doing the opposite and failing for another three years.
I think you’re neglecting some possible failure modes. Unless you deny the existence of failures of the kind CronoDAS describes they don’t seem to be fully accounted for by your model. Why is it that some things that others find difficult we find relatively easy and others that others find easy we find relatively difficult? I think there is a bit more to the answer than means, motivation and effort.
I can think of examples of things I have accomplished relatively easy that many others seem to find difficult or impossible. I can also think of things that I have made some significant effort to become good at and have met with limited success and have ultimately abandoned. I think the reasons for success or failure when trying to develop some new ability are a little more complex than you seem to be implying.
I guess I was hoping that on reflection you might be able to offer some advice intermediate between ‘it’s easy, google it’ and ‘it’s hopeless, give up now’. This is not a criticism—I know I am largely unable to offer any constructive advice on the things I am good at to people who would like to become good at them.
One more thought: Doing a lot of something doesn’t always make you better at it. There’s practice, and then there’s meaningful practice, and you need meaningful practice to get better, not just any practice.
For example, suppose you’re a poor writer and you’re trying to get better, so you set out to write more stories. However, after spending a lot of time writing, all that happens is that you’ve become better at writing poorly; you don’t suffer from writer’s block any more and can finish a story much more quickly than you used to, but each individual story isn’t much better than the ones you wrote before you practiced. What went wrong?
You’re the best chess player in your area, and you want to get better after getting trounced in a regional tournament. You play lots of chess games, and you rack up more and more wins against the people you always beat anyway. You then go to another regional tournament, and lose just as badly as you did before. What went wrong?
You’re the worst chess player in your area, and you want to get better. So you play a lot of chess games against your computer, but it seems that no matter what you do, you still lose, and you don’t seem to be any better at beating human players, either. What went wrong?
You want to be a better pianist, so you spend a lot of time practicing a number of songs on the piano until you’ve completely mastered them. This takes a long time. You then sit down to play a new song you’ve never played before and have a lot of trouble with it. It takes you just as long to master as all the others. What went wrong?
It’s pretty easy to practice something and never get any better, or only show improvement in a small part of a larger skill set.
You’re right, 3 hours a day practicing how to drop a piano on your toe will not help you learn to be a concert pianist, nor will 3 hours slamming the keyboard shut on your genitalia help improve your sex life. Between ‘self-awareness’, ‘willing to work’ and most particularly ‘willing to personally develop’ is the necessity to be willing and able to google ‘how to date’.
Or hire a dating coach, I guess.
Something like that, yes. Or look at what successful daters are doing and acting kinda like what they do instead of doing the opposite and failing for another three years.
I think you’re neglecting some possible failure modes. Unless you deny the existence of failures of the kind CronoDAS describes they don’t seem to be fully accounted for by your model. Why is it that some things that others find difficult we find relatively easy and others that others find easy we find relatively difficult? I think there is a bit more to the answer than means, motivation and effort.
I can think of examples of things I have accomplished relatively easy that many others seem to find difficult or impossible. I can also think of things that I have made some significant effort to become good at and have met with limited success and have ultimately abandoned. I think the reasons for success or failure when trying to develop some new ability are a little more complex than you seem to be implying.
My model is probably wrong. I am sure there are many people who cannot hope to get laid.
I guess I was hoping that on reflection you might be able to offer some advice intermediate between ‘it’s easy, google it’ and ‘it’s hopeless, give up now’. This is not a criticism—I know I am largely unable to offer any constructive advice on the things I am good at to people who would like to become good at them.
How about “it is really hard, google it”? ;)