This is the continuation of the review of "Drive" by Daniel Pink .
Mastery
What is Mastery? It is the desire to
get better at something that matters.
Control
leads to compliance; autonomy leads to engagement. And this distinction leads
to the second element of Type I behavior: mastery—the desire to get better and
better at something that matters.
– Daniel Pink
When you have autonomy, you are
constantly engaging with mastering a skill so that you can do better than next
time. The thrill of conquering obstacles on your way to mastery compounds over
time leading to "Flow" states where you lose track of time and are
fully engaged in the activity.
Living a
satisfying life requires more than simply meeting the demands of those in
control. Yet in our offices and our classrooms we have way too much compliance
and way too little engagement.
In flow, people lived so deeply in the moment, and felt so utterly in control,
that their sense of time, place, and even self melted away. They were
autonomous, of course. But more than that, they were engaged – Daniel Pink
When the task at hand exceeds a
person’s capabilities, the result is anxiety but when it is below a person's capabilities,
the result is boredom. When they match, glorious results are yielded.
The
Three Laws of Mastery
Flow is necessary for mastery but
doesn't guarantee mastery. One happens in the moment while the other happens
over months, years or even decades.
Mastery is a mindset
Carol Dweck, the author of Mindset
and a psychology professor at Stanford University tells us that there
are essentially two mindsets. A growth mindset and a fixed mindset.
For people with fixed mindset,
what they were born with is best that they can do and they don't believe that
there is a way to improve. However, the people with a growth mindset,
believe their current abilities can always improve and one can get smarter,
faster etc
People with a fixed mindset set performance
goals instead of learning goals and cannot overcome any adversity that
challenges them in any way. They seek the easy way out to maintain their frame.
People with a growth mindset have
learning goals and work towards learning something and not performing something
to achieve a target. Example, fixed learners will work to get an A in French
while growth learners will work to learn to speak French fluently.
Mastery
is a pain
Mastery is a pain in the ass and not
a walk in the park otherwise everyone would take the trip.
Flow enters the picture here in two
ways. If people are conscious of what puts them in flow, they’ll have a clearer
idea of what they should devote the time and dedication to master. And those
moments of flow in the course of pursuing excellence can help people through
the rough parts. But in the end, mastery often involves working and working and
showing little improvement, perhaps with a few moments of flow pulling you
along, then making a little progress, and then working and working on that new,
slightly higher plateau again. It’s grueling, to be sure. But that’s not the
problem; that’s the solution.
Mastery
is an asymptote
You can approach mastery, get really
really close to it but you will never touch it just like the straight line
which approaches the curve but never reaches it
In short you will never attain
mastery but you will get really good at something maybe even world class
The joy is in the pursuit and not
the realization.
Thanks for reading all the way to end. This is the end of part 3, go to part 3 of the review to finish the review.
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