The LifeMaven

In his book, Small is the New Big, Seth Godin, talks about zooming in one of the sections. Zooming as he puts it, is doing what you always do, but a little different. It’s about stretching your boundaries, getting outside your comfort zone, and expanding your horizons. The trick is to do it in a way that you’re anchored by the comfortable (what you always do), but you grow by trying something new (done a little differently).

That’s always been a lofty ideal for me and one I haven’t quite reached without realizing why.

Well I finally found out!

Scott Young ran this post today about being on the edge of incompetence. The theme is similar, you want to be constantly learning new things and mastering new skills to grow and succeed in life. But Scott takes it one step further in a tactical sense. He explains that we need to challenge ourselves so that we’re growing, but not too far so that there’s no positive feedback. We need to feel progress.

This is a true epiphany for me. (Forgive me, if I’m not a genius who already knew this xP) I can think of countless examples where this is true. Scott uses the case of running with someone slightly faster than you, but not an Olympian. You want to push yourself without being demoralized.

Some examples I’ve thought of:

-Playing slightly harder songs on an easier difficulty or easier songs on a harder difficulty in Guitar Hero (or Rock Band, your preference)

-Playing against opponents slightly above your rank in any ranked game. (Madden, Halo, chess, etc.)

Again, the lesson for today is:

Challenge yourself by trying things you might not be good at, but make sure you can learn from your failures.

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