Writing is my artistic expression. My keyboard is my brush. Words are my medium. My blog is my canvas. And committing to writing daily makes me feel like an artist.
I heard a question yesterday that really made me think. The question was, “Does he have 20 years experience, or one year of experience repeated 20 times?”
Years of experience is different from years of growth. Many students finish grade 12 and graduate. Some did the bare minimum, some got really good at ‘doing school’ year after year, some come out lifelong learners ready for anything that comes their way, and will actually seek out new learning experiences.
The same can be said for teachers, doctors, lawyers, and tax accountants. Some get good at doing the same thing over and over, some are constantly learning and becoming better… many are a mix between the two.
What are you really good at? How long have you been doing it? What do you suck at, despite putting years into it? And for the latter, what are you going to do differently, so that you are adding to your experience, and not just your years of doing it.
I’ll never look at expertise the same again… ‘years of experience’ comes in many different forms.
I recently shared this quote with a few teachers when I gifted them a book.
“In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”~ Eric Hoffer
In a conversation with another educator this weekend we talked about the fact that we both knew some people who were terribly upset about technology upgrades because it took them out of their comfort zones. This isn’t just a fear of change, it’s also a frustration about not having everything where it ‘should be’. It can be hard to lose your favourites on your browser, if you never signed in and saved them. It can be frustrating to sign into all your accounts again, or to re-setup all your quick shortcuts (again).
But maybe this becomes the time that this person can learn to sign into their browser and take their favourites with them wherever they go. Maybe they can begin to use the cloud to save their documents rather than their hard drive. But they won’t do this without help.
We can share fancy quotes about the importance of lifelong learning, but if we aren’t helping to foster adult learners on their journey, then are we fostering a learning culture ourselves? Everyone is on their own journey with their own comfort levels. When we push people out of their comfort zones, we need to provide the scaffolding and support so that they can learn and adapt. That doesn’t mean that we keep people in their comfort zone, that we don’t make the need to change… But it does mean that too much frustration without support leads to people shutting down rather than being willing to change.
“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” ~ Alvin Toffler
I love this quote, it speaks to the need to embrace change, and to understand that best practice is still just practice. However as easy as it is to understand this idea, it’s much harder to acclimate to. Especially the unlearning part.
I’ve been back into archery since the winter break, got a personal best score of 280 recently, and have been able to duplicate that score a second time. (Scoring is 10 rounds of 3 arrows, with a max score of 10 points per arrow, totalling 300 for a perfect score.) However, I was using a very bad technique with my thumb squeezing the trigger rather than using backward tension on my hand and arm to trigger the release. Since trying to do this properly, I’ve been struggling more and scoring between 267 and 274.
Today I scored a 267, but I was also able to score an X-X-10 three times while practicing. I had been unable to score a perfect 30 in a round for weeks. (An ‘X’ is 10 points but also signifies that I was able to get the arrow in or on the line of the center ‘X’ ring that is the size of a penny, shooting from 18m or 20 yards away.)
While trying to work on my release these past couple weeks, my scores have been lower, and my ability to hit the ‘X’ has been infrequent. But I know that if I continue to punch the trigger with my thumb, I will not shoot nearly as high of a personal best score in the future. My trigger pulling could show some short term gains, but those gains will limit me later on. The problem is, as I unlearn doing this, my scores have gone down.
Unlearning something is hard. Right now there are many things I need to focus on, and when I’m trying to change my muscle memory, my other muscles do funny things. For instance, my bow hand has been gripping the bow tighter, rather than being relaxed, while I think about my back-tension release. And when I relax my hand after drawing, I find it hard to not relax my arm, causing me to have less tension holding my bow ‘hard against the wall’, meaning keeping pressure on the bow’s cams at the back of a full draw.
Without talking about archery technique specifically: while I focus on unlearning a bad habit, my body, accustomed to doing things wrong, doesn’t know how to put all the good moves together. Unlearning one technique means not just learning something new, but also relearning other things as they related to the old vs new learning.
This dip in my scores is part of the unlearning process, and it’s not easy to go through. When we practice new skills, we want to see a quick payoff. But sometimes we need to recognize that unlearning isn’t nearly as easy as learning, and the payoff comes from the practice itself, and not immediate progress. I can focus on my technique, and unlearning a bad habit, or I can worry about my score right now… what I can’t do is both at the same time.
“What stands in the way becomes the way.” ~Marcus Arelious
Sometimes a quote like this can just grab and take hold of you.
What’s in the way of you feeling good about yourself? Is it your weight, well then that becomes your focus and you don’t feel good without knowing if this measurement is going in the right direction… fast enough. But no matter how fast, you aren’t ‘there’ yet… there’s more to do… more work, more sacrifice, more time, before you can be happy.
What’s in the way of feeling accomplished? What are you too busy to get to? What do you need to do first? How do these things that get in the way become the way? How do you go for days forgetting what it is that makes your work enjoyable? Tasks become your day… ‘To Do’ lists fill your calendar, and what you really want to accomplish doesn’t get done.
When you focus on the things in the way, those become your focus. How much of our lives are spent with our attention on the things right in front of us, and not on the things we value or think are important to us?
How do we look beyond what’s in our way and truly find our way?
Imagine being legally blind, able only to see shadows in your peripheral vision. Now imagine needing to endure 10 rounds of fighting a new fresh black belt fighter, for consecutive 3 minutes rounds, to earn your black belt… Richard Turner did this. However I didn’t learn about Richard through his martial arts skills, but rather from his skills as a card mechanic… a close up card magician.
Here is where I first saw him, on Penn & Teller’s show ‘Fool Us’, where top notch magicians try to earn a performance spot in Penn & Teller’s live Vegas show. How do they earn this spot? They must do a trick that confounds Penn & Teller, and they are hard to fool!
Richard fooled them faster than anyone, and Teller was motioning to give him the trophy before he finished his trick.
Here is what Richard said at about the 1hr, 13min mark of the podcast (including opening commercials). I’m not adding anything beyond this quote, it’s brilliant and stands on its own!
“Fear can paralyze. We can be so worried about doing the wrong thing, that we do nothing.
There’s actually an English proverb that says, ‘A man who is afraid to make a mistake is unlikely to make anything… Fear of failure, when left unchecked, can actually lead to the failure we fear.” ~ Richard Turner
I saw this ‘motivational quote’ on Twitter this morning,
STRIVE
for what you
BELIEVE IN
and you will
GET THERE
in no time
What a dumb load of crap! There are many things to strive for that, no matter how hard you strive, will take a long time to get to. Striving doesn’t make the target magically get closer. Striving needs to happen on those days when the target seems farther away, when things aren’t going in your favour, and when others believe you can’t do it. Believing you’ll get there ‘in no time’ is discouraging when things are going slowly despite your efforts.
Here is another one:
You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.
Wow, I had no idea it was that simple! 🤣
This on actually sends the wrong message about success:
There are two rules for success…
1. Never reveal everything you know
The most successful people I know have been overly generous in their sharing.
This is just a little rant about some of the not-so-motivational quotes that seem to circulate on social media, disguising themselves as useful content. Posterized words on images meant to inspire, but not on target, littering my social media timelines. I’m just surprised how many I’ve been seeing lately.
Greta Thunberg asks, “How dare you?”
When I watch this i am reminded of Severn Suzuki’s speech at the Rio Summit in 1992.
There is something special about hearing impassioned youth showing genuine concern for the environment and for their, for our, future.
The difference of 27 years is interesting. Severn did her speech 13 years before YouTube. There wasn’t social media to spread the word. There also wasn’t a culture of mockery and resentment. I went looking for the full video of Greta on Twitter and I saw videos that made fun of her speech and one that was a full attack on her generation. It claimed that her pampered generation was the first to need air conditioning in schools, and technology in their hands. This video started with a frame of ‘this global warming hoax’, so I won’t share it here, I feel bad enough having watched it… giving it my attention, it doesn’t deserve yours.
I hope that Greta’s speech will stand the test of time and not get swallowed up by a subculture of hate, mockery, and ‘meme-ification’. I hope that the global conversation isn’t the equivalent of patting her on the head and saying, ‘good speech young girl’. I hope that this amazing young person can do what Severn Suzuki hoped to do, but didn’t have the stage and audience to do. I hope that Greta Thunberg can be the spark that ignites a real movement, one that makes us seriously look at our human impact on climate in a way that forces us to change.
I’m listening to the audiobook ‘Sapiens’, by Yuval Noah Harari, and this quote struck a cord with me:
“… Such contradictions are an inseparable part of every human culture. In fact, they are culture’s engines, responsible for the creativity and dynamism of our species. Just as when two clashing musical notes played together force a piece of music forward, so discord in our thoughts, ideas, and values compel us to think, reevaluate, and criticize. Consistency is the playground of dull minds.”
This fits well with some of what I was thinking when I wrote Ideas on a Spectrum. We need discord to compel us forward. We need differences of opinions and rich discourse. Consistently thinking the same thing does not promote learning or progress.
On a related note, sometimes I forget to celebrate the good things that are happening around me because I focus on what still needs to change and get better. Maybe this is a flaw. Maybe I need to focus more on this, if not for myself then for those I work with. On the one hand, celebrating can lead to complacency. It can limit or cloud the perspective that more needs to be done. On the other hand, not everyone is willing to work towards a common goal if they don’t feel valued. It is challenging to put these two ‘musical notes’ together as we move forward.
In moving forward, I often think that, ‘Good is the enemy of great’. Consistency can breed mediocrity. And, striving to make things better is never dull.
“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” ~ Buddha
There is one more element to this quote that I think is worthreflecting on. Not only does the lighting of other candles not diminish your own candle, but the joy of sharing your light increases the brightness around you!
