Art of Learning Flashcards
When a Mistake Was Made
Ask yourself what my ide a was and then helped me discover how I could have approached the decision-making process differentl y. ”
The key to pursuing excellence is to
embrace an organic, long-term learning pro cess, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity. Usually, growth comes at the expense of previous comfort or safety.
In the long run, painful losses may prove much more valuable than wins-those who are armed with a healthy attitude and are able to draw wisdom from every experience, “good” or “bad”, are the ones who make it down the road.
They are also the ones who are happier along the way. Of course the real challenge is to stay in range of this long-term perspective when y ou are under fire and hurting in the middle of the war. This, maybe our biggest hurdle, is at the core of the art of learning
My whole career, m y father and I searched out opponents who were a little stronger than me,
so even as I dominated the scholastic circuit, losing was part of my regular experience. I believe this was important for maintaining a healthy perspective on the game.”
Prepare for the Worst Situation, not the Average
A few times a week, while studying che ss in my bedroom, I blasted music. Sometimes it wa s music I liked, sometimes music I didn’t like”
“During t his period of time, in my early teens, I frequente d chess shops near my home and played speed chess in clouds of smoke, which I have always hated.”
“Mental resilience is arguably the most critical trait of a world-class performer, and it should be nurtured continuously.”
Example of Questioning Your mistakes
Did he fall into a downward spiral and make a bunch of mistakes in a row? Was he overconfident? Impatient? Did he get psyched out b y a trash talker? Was he tired? Danny will have an idea about his psychological slip, and taking on that issue will be a short-term goal in the continuing process-introspective thinking of this nature can be a very healthy coping mechanism. Through these dialogues, every loss is an opportunity for growth. He will become increasingly astute psychologically and sensitive to bad habits.”
Don’t Avoid Discomfort
Be at peace with it. Always look for ways to become more and more psychologically impregnable- When uncomfortable, my instinct is not to avoid the discomfort but to become at peace with it.
My Instinct is to Seek Out Challenges
Not Avoid Them
When Breaking Yourself Down to Build Yourself up Better
Learners in this phase are inevitably vulnerable. It is important to have perspective on this and allow yourself protected periods for cultiv ation.
it is essential to have a liberating Incremental approach that allows for times when you are not in a peak performance state.
Those Who have their eye on greatness are willing
to get burned time and again as th ey sharpen their swords in the fire.
Making Smaller Circles
players ten d to get attached to fancy techniques and fail to recognize that subtle internalization and refinement is much more important than the quantity of wha t is learned.”
“The fact is that when there is intense competition, those who succeed have slightly more honed skills than the rest. It is rarely a mysterious technique that drives us to the top, but rather a profound mastery of what may well be a basic skill s et. Depth beats breadth any day of the week, because it opens a channel for the intangible, unconscious, creative components of our hidden potential.”
First, we have to learn to be at peace
with imperfection, I mentioned the image of a blade of grass bending to hurricane-force winds in contrast to a brittle twig snapping under pressure.
Next, in our performance training, we learn to use that imperfection to our advantage-for example thinking to the beat of the music or using a shaking world as a catalyst for insight. The third step of this process, as it pertains to performance psychology, is to learn to create ripples in our consciousness, little jolts to spur us along, so we are constantly inspired whether or not external conditions are inspiring.
One thing I have learned as a competitor is that t here are clear distinctions between what it takes to be decent, what it takes to be good, what it takes to be great, and what it takes to be among the
best.
If your goal is to be mediocre, then you have a considerable margin for error. Almost without exception, I am back on the mats the next day, figuring out how to use my new situation to heighten elements of my game. If I want t o be the best, I have to take risks others would a void, always optimizing the learning potential of the moment and turning adversity to my advantage.
When aiming for the top, your path requires an engaged, searching mind.
You have to make obstacles spur you to creative new angles in the learning pro cess. Let setbacks deepen your resolve. You should always come off an injury or a loss better than w hen you went down. Another angle on this issue is the unfortunate correlation for some between consistency and monotony. It is all too easy to get caught up in the routines of our lives and to lose creativity in the learning process. Even people who are completely devoted to cultivating a certain discipline often fall into a mental rut, a disengage d lifestyle that implies excellence can be obtained by going through the motions. We lose presence.
With practice I am making
networks of chunks and paving more and more neural pathways, which effectively takes huge piles of data and throws it over to my high-speed processor-the unconscious. Now my conscious mind, focusing on less, see ms to rev up its shutter speed from, say, four frames per second to 300 or 400 frames per second. Th e key is to understand that my trained mind is not necessarily working much faster than an untrained mind-it is simply working more effectively,“ly, which means that my conscious mind has less to deal with.
