

You Have To Get Good Before You Get Better - dshipper
http://danshipper.com/you-have-to-get-good-before-you-get-better

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evincarofautumn
It took me a bit to digest what you were saying, but I think I agree.

To my mind, though, the thing that separates successful learners from
unsuccessful is _persistent constructive dissatisfaction_. If you have some
difficulty finding contentment—and are never happy to rest on your laurels for
too long—then you will be determined to achieve more and more, and learning
will happen as a by-product. The longer a plateau becomes, the more likely it
is to stay a plateau; and the shorter you can make a plateau, the better for
your progress.

Perhaps, as you say, this comes from not keeping track of learning progress.
However, I think there is an important other side of it: you _do_ want to keep
track of progress toward some other goal, such as making a game. Then it
becomes a matter of “I need to learn about networking _in order to_ add
multiplayer to my awesome game”. When learning stands between you and your
dreams, you quickly learn to learn quickly.

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dshipper
Thanks for the feedback Evin! I like your point about persistent constructive
dissatisfaction. I think the distinction that I'm making is that when people
get to wrapped up in their progress they get persistent _destructive_
dissatisfaction. That produces frustration, which leads people to stop trying.

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evincarofautumn
Yeah, that’s a nice succinct way of putting it. Unfortunately, nice succinct
ways of putting things don’t seem to make for very compelling writing. So we
blog.

If another person calls me “Evin”, I may have to stop using the name “evincar
of autumn”. The reference is so easily lost.

~~~
dshipper
Sorry about that Jon!

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wallflower
This reminds me of one of my favorite articles that I always forward to people
who want to become better, maybe even quite good...but are just starting out

[http://www.unlikelysalsero.com/2007/08/magic-of-time-last-
on...](http://www.unlikelysalsero.com/2007/08/magic-of-time-last-one-
standing.html)

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shepbook
Thanks for this. I'm teaching myself to program and I've been trying to always
focus on the long term. Always trying to focus on the thought that, as long as
I keep at it, I'll get better, even if I feel useless right now.

Thanks for the encouragement and validation.

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Wickk
<http://www.norvig.com/21-days.html>

I stumbled across this incredible article reading Jeff Atwood's now-
apparently-controversial post on that subject I'm avoiding like the plague.

Back to the point, it basically summarizes what I tell all of my friends who
gain an interest and want to learn fast. I've been learning for over a decade
out of interest now since I was 12 and I will never refer to myself as
anything other than marginally competent. I akin programming to math in the
sense that the ceiling is not really there because there is always more to
learn and thats what the majority of your (programming) life is spent doing.

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slavi
A fantastic essay - and very true!

"If your goal is to get a little bit better every day, you’re constantly
monitoring your progress. But your barometer for progress is so screwed up
that it becomes extremely discouraging very quickly. This is the point where
most people give up."

This second sentence is my favorite in the entire post.

When I started coding 15 years ago, all I cared about was having fun, learning
and building something great. All you need is a fun project, emotional
ignorance to the peaks and valleys in your perception, and a lot of practice.

This is very different from the current academic approach to teaching people
how to code. The projects are usually boring and dull, you start by learning
theoretical constructs and what not - instead of experiencing the joy of
hacking.

Btw your post reminded me of a few books: \- The Talent Code \- Talent is
Overrated \- Outliers

All fantastic books in the field of deliberate practice. Once you learn and
internalize the process of deliberate practice, you become free of the
emotional burden that comes with learning new stuff.

Like most things, awareness of the pain alleviates it substantially. Your post
does a great job at creating awareness.

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karterk
In the book called "Dip" by Seth Godin - he talks about the plateau where most
people quit when learning something new. Initially, the excitement of trying
something new get people started. Once that wears off, you hit the plateau. To
really become good at something, you need to fight these plateaus.

