Are You Incubating?

Challenging ourselves regularly is one of the most important things we can do. I’ve been spending a lot of time in the past couple years studying the (traditional) science of optimism. This video reminded me of two bits of that research that I thought were particularly vital. One was the world’s leading expert on ironically, experts… or rather on expertise – he studies what makes experts different from the average person and forgive me for not remembering his name offhand, but what he’s found consistently is that not only do experts continue to practice, but they focus their practice on skills and techniques that are challenging and difficult for them – skills they haven’t yet mastered. Most people by contrast get to a certain point and are then content to simply continue to practice what they’ve already mastered, which is what prevents them from becoming experts. The other piece was from Carol Dweck in her book Mindset: the New Psychology of Success. Her decades of research confirm that same trend – the people who excel at anything usually have what she calls a “growth mindset” in which they embrace things that are difficult and challenging, they accept and even seek out failures because they know that a failure shows them something they can learn, a way that they can grow.