Learn, Improve, Master: How to Develop Any Skill and Excel at It
von Nick Velasquez
This effect goes beyond remembering facts, events, or experiences; it also translates into acquiring knowledge and skills. Associating new learning with things we already know creates a larger web of knowledge that’s harder to forget. So, the more connections we create between what we are learning and what we’ve learned before, the more likely the new knowledge will stick. Know the place or path and the fixed objects in it well. You don’t want to struggle to remember what was in the location in the first place. Also, only use objects you know will remain in their position and are hard to overlook. Give objects room to be noticed. If you overcrowd a space with them, it will be more likely you’ll skip some. Always go through the place or path in the same direction. Front to back, back to front, clockwise, or counterclockwise—any direction is fine as long as it’s the same every time. And go from object to object in the same order. This will help avoid overlooking things. Choose objects that are different from each other. If two chairs in your living room look similar, use only one as a locus; otherwise, it may get confusing. Create images that grab your attention and make an impression—active, funny, sexual, ridiculous, dramatic, out of the ordinary. Visualize details, and when possible, have the images interact with you as you walk around; it will make them easier to remember. If you want to store information permanently in a location, make sure you don’t use it to memorize anything else. Also, revisit it once in a while, so the knowledge doesn’t fade. If you are storing information temporarily, make sure you do a mental “sweep” of all the associations attached to the loci so they can be used again. This may sound strange, but going over them in your mind and mentally vanishing the previous connections will clear the space to start anew.
This effect goes beyond remembering facts, events, or experiences; it also translates into acquiring knowledge and skills. Associating new learning with things we already know creates a larger web of knowledge that’s harder to forget. So, the more connections we create between what we are learning and what we’ve learned before, the more likely the new knowledge will stick.
We start by making individual associations between concepts and behavior and then group them to form more complex, larger chunks. As we get better at processing these associations, they move from our conscious awareness into our subconscious (we no longer read letters but see words instead, and we pay little attention to our body movements as we drive).
The first element of mastery is proficiency—the ability to execute a skill and do it well. Masters are fluent in their craft. They have dedicated enough time to learn the conceptual and practical side of it. But beyond that, we regard masters as such for standing out from the majority through comparison or competition. They have high-level proficiency.
Myelination is the internal process for getting better at anything: through practice, we build layer upon layer of myelin on the neural pathways related to our skill, making them robust and specialized, the neural equivalent of turning a rough trail into a path. And if we continue our practice over the years, that path evolves into a speedway.
An example to follow is that of Demosthenes, the great statesman and orator of ancient Athens. He was afraid of public speaking and had a speech impediment earlier in life. But through years of dedicated practice, he honed his speaking skills and became one of the best orators of his time, despite what seemed like crippling disadvantages.
"This effect goes beyond remembering facts, events, or experiences; it also translates into acquiring knowledge and skills. Associating new learning with things we already know creates a larger web of knowledge that’s harder to forget. So, the more connections we create between what we are learning and what we’ve learned before, the more likely the new knowledge will stick."
"Know the place or path and the fixed objects in it well. You don’t want to struggle to remember what was in the location in the first place. Also, only use objects you know will remain in their position and are hard to overlook. Give objects room to be noticed. If you overcrowd a space with them, it will be more likely you’ll skip some. Always go through the place or path in the same direction. Front to back, back to front, clockwise, or counterclockwise—any direction is fine as long as it’s the same every time. And go from object to object in the same order. This will help avoid overlooking things. Choose objects that are different from each other. If two chairs in your living room look similar, use only one as a locus; otherwise, it may get confusing. Create images that grab your attention and make an impression—active, funny, sexual, ridiculous, dramatic, out of the ordinary. Visualize details, and when possible, have the images interact with you as you walk around; it will make them easier to remember. If you want to store information permanently in a location, make sure you don’t use it to memorize anything else. Also, revisit it once in a while, so the knowledge doesn’t fade. If you are storing information temporarily, make sure you do a mental “sweep” of all the associations attached to the loci so they can be used again. This may sound strange, but going over them in your mind and mentally vanishing the previous connections will clear the space to start anew."
"Masters’ refined intuition is, in fact, a highly trained subconscious communicating with them through emotions. We all have intuition. We know what it feels like. The difference is that masters’ intuition has been fine-tuned through years of experience. At their level, their craft is embedded in their way of thinking and emotional processing. As dancer Martha Graham once put it, “The body is shaped, disciplined, honored, and in time, trusted.” Indeed, masters can and should trust their intuition, but the rest of us have to first develop it before we can rely on it."
"A simplified way to think about flexible and precise skills is that in flexible skills, there are many roads to achieve our goal (the process can vary), while in precise skills, there’s only one (the process is not meant to change). The focus of practice for flexible skills, then, is on internalizing principles and patterns and learning to apply them in different ways—developing flexibility. And for precise skills, the focus is on executing the same moves, in the same way, every time—developing precision."
"We come back to using what we know to learn something new. It’s an essential principle that we’ll turn into an active strategy by looking for connections between what we already know and what we are trying to learn. We’ll spend time thinking of how the new information relates, even remotely, to something we are already familiar with. For this, we can use analogies, metaphors, examples, and any form of comparisons—which are especially useful if they are visual and concrete."
"This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look for efficiency. In fact, the premise of this book is to optimize learning. What we should be against is the trap of jumping from method to method in search of a magic pill. We must remember that just as diet and exercise are the foundation of getting in shape—and can’t be avoided even with the most efficient approaches—practice (lots of it…for a long time) is the foundation of mastering a craft."
"The domain-specific memory displayed by LeBron James, chess masters, and other elite performers reflects the amount of study and practice they’ve put into their craft. They were not born with a better memory than the rest of us; they developed it through practice in their fields. It is a byproduct of the work they put into mastering their craft and carries the implication that we could achieve the same if we put in the work, too."
- →Myelination is the internal process for getting better at anything: through practice, we build layer upon layer of myelin on the neural pathways related to our skill, making them robust and specialized, the neural equivalent of turning a rough trail into a path. And if we continue our practice over the years, that path evolves into a speedway.
- →Simulation also works as a form of testing. By practicing in realistic scenarios, we can find out what we are doing right and what needs more work. When pilots go into simulated scenarios, they quickly realize if they are on top of their skill or not and then use that information to improve their training.
- →Masters, and aspiring ones, also look for efficiency, but they do it to get more out of the time and energy they already put in. Their focus is on maximizing results, not on minimizing effort. In other words, they optimize their training not to cut practice or make it easier but to get more out of it.
- →We’ll start with the different ways we take in information: Observation: watching someone do what we want to learn Imitation: following along as someone else does it Explanation: reading or listening as someone else breaks down the subject Experimentation: trying to figure things out on our own
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