jsjoeio
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12 months ago Okay I realized this needs a lot of work...I'm going to rewrite a brand new draft and will post again here :)
Closed jsjoeio closed 11 months ago
jsjoeio
commented
12 months ago Okay I realized this needs a lot of work...I'm going to rewrite a brand new draft and will post again here :)
jsjoeio
commented
11 months ago jsjoeio
commented
11 months ago
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Description: This article gives you a formula you can follow to become an expert in something. It's a new mental model for building expertise in a way that's practical, approachable and fun.
Draft below:
Recently, I've been thinking a lot about expertise and mastering skills. How do you get really good at something in life that has so many facets?
It's a really hard question. At least the way I think about it compared to sports. Take soccer for example. If you said, I want to be best soccer player, you could narrow down expertise to specific subskills you'd need to master.
Obviously you could slice it definitely, but I'm keeping it simple.
Now take something else like speaking Spanish. How do you define "master Spanish speaker"? It's not quite as easy.
But after talking to friends about this, I've realized I've been looking at it all wrong. We can figure out the answer to that question and build expertise as a Spanish speaker, or in any other area of life.
In order to do it, we first must accept some Universal Truths.
Universal Truths
These are things we all agree on and must learn to accept in order to find the path to our expertise.
There is no "end"
Unlike a college degree or a video game, there is no "done." You'll never reach a level and say, "yup, I'm all done with X". Most athletes will win championships but they never stop playing the game.
It's the same with building expertise. There's a big difference between saying "I want to learn piano" vs "I want to be a world-class piano player". Obvious, I know. But worth saying because if you want to reach a professional level in something, it's going to be a life-long journey.
Time is limited
Most of us have full-time jobs, families, responsibilities, etc. so our time is limited. You don't have hours and hours each day to dedicate to building expertise. That means you have to be very deliberate in the way you spend your time.
It's better to stay focused and mindful and do what you can.
framework or mental model for building expertise
being the 95th percentile and reaching peak performance. motivating, fun, working towards something bigger, investing energy.
Goals AND Habits
I used to hear a lot of discourse around Habits > Goals. In expertise, I think both can help. Let's look at a practical example.
You like running. So you start a habit to run every other day. Now you have the habit, but it might not put you closer to becoming an expert. It's not specific or measurable. But with a goal like "I want to run a 5k in 18mins" then you can combine the habit with something specific and work towards expertise.
Competence and Feedback are essential
I love this definition from the Refold language learning guide. Competence is knowing intuitively what to do in a situation. It's like operating on autopilot.
Feedback is also crucial. All of the best sports athletes watch film of themselves and learn how to improve their craft. You might even have other experts critique you as well, which is even better.
But don't rely on it. Get comfortable being able to critique yourself. Yes, it's awkward, but it's essential.
The Formula
Now that we've established a foundation, let's dive into a formula for applying this in a practical manner. There are three pieces: the Macro, the Micro and the Goal.
Macro: high-level aspects of the skill
Micro: aspects of the Macro
Goal: a specific thing you're working on to improve the Micro
Example: Foreign Language
To illustrate this, let's apply this to a real example: Spanish.
The Macro for Spanish could be broken into the following four aspects:
Let's pick Speaking. So now we take Speaking and break it down into the Micro, which might look like:
(The Macro/Micro do not have to be universal. They are specific to you and how you break down a skill.)
Finally, we choose one of these and make a specific goal. I'll pick pronunciation. To improve my pronunciation in Spanish, I'm going to:
And the important thing is to both learn to correct yourself and measure if this experiment/exercise works. If it does, I can continue using this Micro.
That's it! And the beauty is you can rinse and repeat until you're happy with your level at that Micro and then choose a different Micro to improve. And with this, you have a formula to increase your expertise in this skill.
If you give this formula a try, let me know! Would love to hear your goals and your results. Feel free to reach out at joe (at) joeprevite dot com. I love talking to people about this stuff.