From: Craig Maloney Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2019 11:42:51 +0000 (-0500) Subject: Adding more about avoidance X-Git-Tag: 20200112^2~89 X-Git-Url: https://jxself.org/git/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=33cbaf7b7976b8fa70ba4d495bc7b5db360c86af;p=themediocreprogrammer.git Adding more about avoidance --- diff --git a/chapter06.md b/chapter06.md index fc1b020..44fba5f 100644 --- a/chapter06.md +++ b/chapter06.md @@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ Treat your learning as an iterative process, with regular check-in periods to se ## Resistance and The Container -Any time we learn new things we put ourselves into a vulnerable and uncomfortable place. We take the things we are familiar with and try to apply them as we push into new territory. We become uncertain of the outcome; will it be successful or will it be a failure? Will it help us or hurt us? Will we choose the wrong thing to learn and will that cost us opportunities in the long run? +Any time we learn new things we put ourselves into a vulnerable and uncomfortable place. We take the things we are familiar with and try to apply them as we push into new territory. We become uncertain of the outcome; will it be successful or will it be a failure? Will this topic be too difficult for us to grasp? Will it help us or hurt us? Will we choose the wrong thing to learn and will that cost us opportunities in the long run? Discomfort and uncertainty are certainly a part of learning, but rather than think of them as something to be avoided we should instead think of them as a beacon. A beacon gives us direction and illumination when we're in uncertain territory. When we feel uncertain about what we're doing that feeling means we're pushing into new territory. Instead of trying to avoid it or wishing for comfort we can instead relish that we're in uncertain territory and feel those brief twinges of fear and doubt. We can say "I'm about to learn something new. I'm frightened, and don't know where this will lead, but that's OK. I'm willing to see where this goes and enjoy the journey". @@ -52,7 +52,7 @@ We've been conditioned over our human existence to think of the unknown as somet Steven Pressfield in _The War of Art_ nicknamed these feelings "The Resistance". He considers The Resistance as a sort of mythological being who lives in each of us to thwart creative acts. As the work progresses The Resistance ratchets up the pressure to stop by introducing the feelings of fear and anxiety that we mentioned above. I think of The Resistance as something that also happens whenever we are learning, especially if we're learning tools that help us in our creative pursuits. Pressfield limited his definition to creative folks who were working to complete creative work (book, painting, game, etc.) but I'm expanding his definition to the learning process itself. In our case The Resistance shows up when we're learning the tools to help us be more creative. The Resistance is what tells us we're not good enough to learn these things, or we're unworthy of the benefits they'll bring us. It tries to keep us safe in what we already know. -This is why the focus container that we mentioned before is so important: it gives us small doses of discomfort in manageable chunks. We can see our way through small amounts of daily discomfort and keep learning through our discomfort. And if we focus on one thing at a time we can keep ourselves from the distracting thoughts about whether or not this is the thing we should be working on. Whatever we're working on in this moment is exactly what we should be working on. Whatever is in front of us to learn is what we should be learning. We can be secure in knowing that however long the container is that everything we are doing during this container is exactly as it should be. When we finish the container we can reassess how it went and what challenges lay ahead. +This is why the focus container that we mentioned before is so important: it gives us small doses of discomfort and difficulty in manageable chunks. We can see our way through small amounts of daily discomfort and keep learning through our discomfort. It helps us work through our tendency to avoid and hide from difficult situations. And if we focus on one thing at a time we can keep ourselves from the distracting thoughts about whether or not this is the thing we should be working on. Whatever we're working on in this moment is exactly what we should be working on. Whatever is in front of us to learn is what we should be learning. We can be secure in knowing that everything we are doing for the duration of this container is exactly as it should be. When we finish the container we can reassess how it went and what challenges lay ahead. ## Mapping out longer-term goals