The Growth Mindset
Day 14 / 365
One of the first self-help books I ever read was a little handbook titled “Determination and Motivation - the success cocktail”, which I got as a prize in a science quiz. One of the advice I got from the book that I still quote to people every now and then, is the concept of a Success Plateau.
When you first start learning something new, you would generally keep making progress the more time you spend on it. However, after some time you’ll hit a plateau. No matter how many hours you put in, how hard you work, you won’t see much progress. A lot of people give up at this stage. If you keep going you might even see a little dip in your performance. But if you choose to ride this plateau out, you are sure to see progress again. And the process repeats itself.
After watching this Ted Talk by Eduardo Briceño however, I have come to realize that it’s not just how many hours you put in that would get you past the plateau, it’s how you utilize these hours that matters.
Learning Zone vs Performance Zone
Most successful people in any domain spend their time alternating between two zones or mindsets — The learning zone and the Performance zone
In the learning zone, the aim is to improve, to keep challenging yourself and trying out new strategies. In the performance zone, however, the focus is on applying things you have already learned.
In the performance zone, the mistakes have to be minimized. On the other hand in the learning zone mistakes are not only OK, but they are also expected.
Most of us unknowingly spend a lot of time in the performance zone. Which is why we don’t see any improvements no matter how hard we work. When we think we’ve become good enough, we stop spending time in the learning zone. Activities that involve learning would require us to come out of our comfort zone, so we tend to avoid them. We continue to just do our jobs, to perform.
How to spend more time in the learning zone
An important aspect of the learning zone is that we will surely make mistakes. So we need to create an environment where it’s ok for us to fail. Just like training wheels for a child, or a safety net for a circus performer.
This is a reason why most young students would have trouble coming out of the performance zone. Since an early age, they are made to believe that failure would have terrible consequences. So they are afraid to make mistakes. Instead, they should be told that its ok to fail and that learning from their mistakes is what would help them grow.
So make sure you keep switching to the learning zone every once in a while. Take some time out to read, try out new ways to do old things.
What if, instead of spending our lives doing, doing, doing, performing, performing, performing, we spent more time exploring, asking,listening, experimenting, reflecting, striving and becoming? What if we each always had something we were working to improve?
This story is part of my 365 Day Project for 2019. Read about it here