Growth is uncomfortable
Summary
- Growth requires abandoning a true and tested method of doing things, and making mistakes as you learn the new thing. This is innately uncomfortable.
- The more discomfort, the faster we are learning
Details
- Practicing something new before we have mastered it is uncomfortable.
- One learner uses the number of mistakes as his measure of progress.
- The more mistakes you make the faster the improvement, and the less the mistakes bother us.
References
Quotes
Becoming a creature of discomfort can unlock hidden potential in many different types of learning. Summoning the nerve to face discomfort is a character skill—an especially important form of determination. It takes three kinds of courage: to abandon your tried-and-true methods, to put yourself in the ring before you feel ready, and to make more mistakes than others make attempts. The best way to accelerate growth is to embrace, seek, and amplify discomfort.
As I talked with Sara Maria about her breakthrough, a light bulb went off for me. Comfort in learning is a paradox. You can’t become truly comfortable with a skill until you’ve practiced it enough to master it. But practicing it before you master it is uncomfortable, so you often avoid it. Accelerating learning requires a second form of courage: being brave enough to use your knowledge as you acquire it.
When Benny is ready to start learning a new language, he sets an ambitious goal: to make at least 200 mistakes a day. He measures his progress by the number of errors he makes. “The more mistakes you make, the faster you will improve and the less they will bother you,” he observes. “The best cure to feeling uncomfortable about making mistakes is to make more mistakes.”