Mastery is often thought of as a place or level we get to. It’s a little different really.
Working on mastery
A while ago I was working through another BTL (Built to Lead, Chet Scott) article. I love Scott’s stuff. He makes you think. In my case often by evoking a kind of denial or anger when he hits the mark too close to one of my own thoughts. This time he was talking of mastery. What touched me off was his comment that “The enemy of mastery is thinking you know it already.”
Part of me woke up. I took Scott’s meaning as just talking about avoidance and was partly wrong. That part of my mind raising the commotion did not stop with understanding. It protested instead. “Does not such a mindset also harm? Does this line of thinking not harm confidence? Do we not say “I’ve got this” when we start out on a new journey?”
I did agree that when we are learning repition is essential. I learned long ago in karate that we humans need to over practice far beyond the phase where we think we know things. Many masters are known to practice in this manner.
Following the masters’ thoughts
My initial rejections were followed by some new thoughts. Steven Pressfield said he dealt with a criticism of his work by his editor. Shawn Coyne had returned Pressfield’s manuscript with ten needed edits. He had an instant flutter of frustration. There was noting he could agree with. I could see the parallels I had here.
Adjust to mastery time
Instead of just attacking the critique, Pressfield chose to allow himself time to adjust and see the possibilities. Over a few weeks he found some of the changes made sense and he could deal with them. As he progressed over several more weeks he whittled down his arguments against the changes. His emotions died down and his mind wrapped itself about the issues from his more clear frame of reference.
Pressfield has mastered the professional mindset allowing him to deal with things from a less emotional state. Taking more time allows his mind work through the data set. I decided to let my mind work through the data set that with Scott’s line of thought by going with Pressfield’s approach to let it sit a bit before I did my BTL writing on the article.
Results
By the time I sat down I could, like Pressfield, already see how the change up thinking worked in learning situations. I had already come to the agreement that there is no going over old stuff without something new coming out of it. All new stuff is the result of old stuff. You cannot have the new without a solid and regular repeated exposure to the old.
It occurred to me that I had run into this before. I had talked to my youngest daughter about learning new things and the secret to kata found through kaizen, never ending practice. I had told her, “When you learn something new from another person, you learn something that was found in somebody else’s mind. When you learn something knew from your own mind and the connections you made with old material, you create something new that you can give the world.”
New thought
That memory brought up a new thought. ‘Are you a giver or a taker?’
When we learn, we are the takers. We look for the thoughts and ideas of others. When we move into a more giving mode of mind, we look deeper into the material to find new connections that we can give to the world.
Mastery is process
Taking a break allowed me a new take on concepts I already possessed. Mastery is not an end of a process. It is the process. We kill that process when we think about the material we are looking at in the wrong way. Scott could not be more right than “The enemy of mastery is thinking you know it already.”
Scott’s mastery solution
To combat this enemy mindset Scott reminded me in a new way that we should never tell ourselves, or anyone else for that matter, “I know that, I didn’t really learn anything new, or give me something new.” In its stead Scott offered a great mantra:
“I’ve a lot to learn, I’ve found the melody line, and now I am after a thousand nuances and then a thousand more.”
This is the heart of mastery. You don’t learn new things. You learn the details of what you thought you knew.
Mastery lesson
In life, whether that is on a dojo floor or at the keyboard late in the afternoon struggling to get through another article on time, we never stop learning. Most of that learning will be influenced by what we have already learned. The deep learning all comes from what we have already learned. There is always something new to learn in old stuff we think we already know. We find it in the nuances.
Mastery is a deliberate practice in the mundane where we strive to learn what we did not learn before. The only path to mastery is through the grind down the well trod path of what we already know. Looking for those nuances is where we find the joy of our practice.
Gain mastery
Writers of all levels can optimize our own learning on the path to mastery. Here are a few suggestions to add to your path.
Your job.
Not all jobs are writing based, but when choosing work you should look at possibilities beyond the financial ones when possible to open yourself to more learning that will improve your writing skills. Consider such options as a low paying startup job, unpaid internships, and opportunities to follow a mentor.
Just because you have to hold a full time job in another non writing field does not mean many of these opportunities are not still on the table. Some of them can be done on a limited bases such as evenings, weekends or even for two weeks of vacation. You can also look into online work as well. The point is to find a way to add to your mastery practice. You will not find one if you do not open yourself up to try.
Those you know.
Jim Rohn is famous for saying, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” He is right. We might not be the average of our five closest friends and acquaintances, but those around us do shape our attitudes and habits. Choosing some people who share your desire to become better writers to hang with is a wise investment in your path to mastery of this wondrous craft. Look for people you can learn from. Get comfortable with the idea that you are not the smartest in your circle. Being dumb allows you to ask the dumb questions you might otherwise avoid and suffer from the lost opportunity to fill in a gap.
Attitude adjustment chamber.
Pride and ego are a tag team bent on destroying your education. When we are learning we need to ask stupid questions and even accept looking foolish for one really good reason. We don’t really know something. Not asking stupid questions holds us back and is the most foolish reason for failure ever, especially when the answer is right there for the asking and the only cost is the posibility of looking foolish or feeling stupid. On should never feel ashamed for saying, “I still don’t get it” for the third time. Writing mastery demands that we get it. There is no deadline or award for getting it in record time. We just need to get it. Cultivate an attitude that is fearless before negative feedback and failure.
The mastery wrap up
The writer’s path to mastery is the same as mastery of any field. Once we have learned what to do, we grind through our lessons ten thousand times finding the nuances till we find nothing more to learn. So far no one has proved Hemingway wrong, we work in an endeavor that has no master, but one in which all aspire to being one in. Welcome to the path.
Want to read more on the writer’s path? Try this article: Writing with Self-Confidence
Photo by Motoki Tonn on Unsplash
