Intelligence
Too few among us gain mastery over any domain. We lead a life of mediocrity and by the time we realize this--by middle age--we feel it's too late.
Perhaps the most important reason: similar to why we, often, don't know what we truly want, most of us don't know what we feel passionate about. A related reason is that we take up pursuits for the wrong reasons. We take up an investment banking job because there is money in it, or we join a social media firm because social media is 'in', or we join the entertainment industry to become famous. As researchers have shown, extrinsic rewards like money and fame can motivate us only to a certain extent; if we don't enjoy what we do, we get burned out pretty fast. In other words, only if we pursue what truly interests us can we stay dedicated to it over the long haul.
A more insidious reason why we don't dedicate the requisite amount of time required to gain mastery over a domain, we give up too fast. This happens, even, to those who are lucky enough to have found their passion. There are many reasons why. Kathryn Schulz, in her excellent new book, Being Wrong, highlights one: we get disheartened by failure, and the emotional negativity de-motivates us. Another reason for giving up too fast is that we have faulty intuitions about the process by which we gain mastery over a domain.
We think that the process of gaining mastery over a domain is a linear process.
In reality, the relationship between effort and expertise is non-linear, it comes in spurts.
The implications are straightforward. The first thing is to recognize that there is no substitute for doing what truly interests you, even if there doesn't seem to be a 'market' for what you like to do. In the long run, it's better to be a big fish in a small pond than to be insignificant plankton in a vast ocean.
Keep at it!
Go, Go, Grow
by Raj Raghunathan, Ph.D.
Psychology Today
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