It was once commonly understood that the world worked in cycles. The day transitioning to night, the change of the seasons, and the passing of time made this very clear to all peoples. As I’ve said before nature was put in place to both challenge and instruct man. These cycles make up a natural part of our life and are part of many different facets of it. From the natural cycle of life and death. We are born weak and feeble and unless we die during our prime years we die weak and feeble.
There is also a cycle of growth. Whether this is going through something like puberty or simply adding muscle or getting in better shape in general. It is a process that takes time. Life is made up of cycles and the better one can understand these cycles the better one can “take advantage” of them to get what he wants out of life in the most efficient and effective way.
I believe that I’ve talked before about how progress is never linear. Maybe people have the belief that progress happens on step at a time and while this is true in a way it’s also a very wrong way to look at progress. Progress in any endeavor far more often happens when you take action after action with nothing seeming to happen and then suddenly you get a giant spurt of progress and are back to taking action after action with nothing seeming to happen until you get another spurt. Not my main focus on this article but something to keep in mind.
“Hacking” The Cycle
I dislike the word hacking as it reminds me of nerds who try to squeeze all the life out of life, but it does convey the right idea. Here I want to explain the cycle that leads to progress and how one can make the most out of it. This applies to fields of all kinds from learning a skill like carpentry or boxing to learning how to balance one’s finances or basic salesmanship. There are very few skills that I can think of that this does not apply to and will not aid.
You’ll see many people who get stuck in ruts doing the same thing over and over with nothing to show for it and no progress being made. Sometimes these ruts are temporary and other times these ruts are paths to nowhere. I find this a lot with people who want to do everything on their own and learn everything the hard way or “through their own experience” which is foolish as I’ve said before.
Why do people consider it better to stick their hand in the fire and get burned instead of being able to tell from the last person who did it not to do it? There is a weird pride in this that holds many back. Of course on the other hand you have the nerds who wish to do anything but interact with life and want everything codified and explained to them in a data processing format. They have all the theory in the world but little to no real world practical knowledge.
For best results you want to strike a balance between the two. Trying to figure out everything on your own is stupid, especially when so many have walked the path before you. Might as well get rid of your car and try to invent the wheel yourself. Likewise trying to figure out everything before you interact with something at all is also stupid as without real world application and knowledge theory will be useless. That’s why I only try to read about things that I’m currently doing and therefore can apply right away.
Knowledge & Application
Now finding the balance between the two is important. Most people will tell you to err on the side of action and I’d tend to agree with them. But when you get to the higher level of something it starts to go the other way and knowledge becomes higher than action (though I’d always keep action at least 50%). Here’s a recent example from my own life.
I started doing BJJ roughly 6 or so months ago. I didn’t buy any books on it, watch any videos, or did anything outside of class. I rolled every class and figured that that was enough. Of course others I started with started to surpass me even with my natural strength (a wrestling background and literally strength). But I just kept putting in the hours figuring that was the key.
And it is part of the key but not the key itself. Eventually 4 or so months in I was like “Maybe I should be a book to help me figure this out” so I went and got some BJJ books off Amazon. Reading through they highlighted some key areas I was deficient in or doing things wrong. There was a lot of slapping my heading thinking “Duh! Why don’t I do that!” moments as well. Now granted 6 more months on the mat and maybe I would have figured all of this out (or maybe not).
But by using the knowledge of others (in combination with going to class and rolling multiple times per week) I was able to accelerate my knowledge and skill level exponentially. Essentially you multiply knowledge times application to get skill. Put mathematically.
Knowledge X Application = Skill
So as you see if you’re already really high in one area it’s not going to do you that much good to get even higher in it. For example if you have 8 application in one area but 3 knowledge that only equals 24. If you raise your application to 10 and your knowledge stays at 3 that gets you to 30. But if you raise your knowledge to 5 that leads to 40. An increase of 10 over adding those 2 points to application.
So by balancing out what you’re weak in you can exponentially increase the end result. You must put effort into both learning and training. Don’t just rely on one or the other as that will get you nowhere fast (or ever). Instead balance them out and increase them both as high as you can.
Develop Skills Faster Than Ever Before
Read books, listen to lectures, and spend time in the field. These aren’t either/or things but rather things that work synchronously together. People are so stupid always getting into debates about whether breathing in or breathing out is better (this is a metaphor not to be taken literally) when everything works best when you do both! So be smart and make sure to maximize both application and learning and blow past those that focus on one or the other only.
If you have any questions you would like to see answered in a future post send them to me at charlessledge001 (at) gmail (dot) com. If you found value in this post then I would encourage you to share this site with someone who may need it as well as check out my books here. I appreciate it.
-Charles Sledge
