Similar Posts
Just Chill, Commit to Mastery
No matter what skill you choose, you can visualize mastery. You can see it. Now imagine what it would take to get there... I bet that in your visualization that mastery does not happen in 6 months. In my mind’s eye I can see myself creating awful noises for quite some time before actually playing a tune. I imagine that if your thing was to master German, in your vision you can see yourself stumbling through words before you can actually write amazingly good emails. By the same token, I bet that if you imagine your teachers for that journey, you don’t see slicky guys selling you fast results or trying to trap you with hard sells and gimicky marketing. In that vision, mastery is a continuous, long, and difficult process of learning. It’s slow and tedious. This is why it’s so rare. (In other words, mastery is what Hollywood movies show in a super fast montage with the subscript “five years later”.)
Walking Naked and Other Uncomfortable Things
Borges is one of those writers that is highly appreciated yet poorly understood. You might have heard of him, but probably you haven’t read his writings. His work reminds me of David Bowie. There is this aura of bizarreness that covers it. It makes it seem disruptive and avant-garde. Yet it’s simple, classic, and universal....
Functional Fixedness
However, because we humans clearly cannot have nice things, the term has been bastardized, oversimplified, and not problematized enough. When Henrick laughs at my suggestion of doing curls, he is just repeating a learned behavior. It is common in the functional world to look at other forms of training and think they are poor, vain, or irrelevant. On the one side, this is how every culture is created, by creating an other to separate from. That’s how we define our existence as a thing. On the other hand, this attitude is the representation of a very bad case of functional fixedness (FF). Think of this as a bad habit of the mind, a way of thinking that hinders more than helps, and that in the case of Henrick will limit his performance and his movement capacity. The purpose of this post is to explain to you what FF is so that you can catch yourself in this trap, and do something about it.
Learning New Skills
When I start working with a new client , I ask them, how do you think I can help you? The answer is never what a coach would like to hear. I would like to hear some romantic, grandiose version of how awesome coaching can be and how it can change your life for good in ALL the aspects. But of course it’s never this. The standard answer is structure and accountability. Which usually translates to: tell me what to do and make me do it. My very first task is to reframe that idea for my athlete, more than providing structure and accountability what I do is create contexts in which they can find what works best for them, and what they want. I create contexts in which they thrive.
Can I have your attention, please?
If there is no product the product is you, they say. Nowadays, anyone priding themselves on being critical throws this phrase around when talking about "free" digital services --think Facebook, Gmail, or Twitter. I beg to differ. There is some truth to the idea behind it, but it is primarily a simplistic vilification. Fortunately, you...
Stay Active
No matter what. I could drop the mic there and leave. But I will not. Get this. Your brain does not function as well when you are inactive. You are not as productive and your thinking is not as sharp. I am not talking about being super fit and lifting all the weights and doing...
