Creating content
Footprints in the sand
Day 53 of 100-day Creator Challenge
Watching experts do their thing can fill us with wonder. I’m not a big sports fan, but when my friend Lyssa wrote about Sue Bird, I watched a couple of videos where she effortlessly passed the basketball to a team mate, or make a three-point shot. It filled me with awe and joy.
When we think about learning a skill, we often think of learning from experts.
But, unless the expert is also a trained coach, they often can’t really breakdown a skill in a way that would be useful for you if you are just starting to learn something.
Tom Vanderbilt wrote in his book Beginners:
Research suggests we can actually learn more by watching others who are closer to our skill levels perform the same task-mistakes and all-than by watching the flawless perfection of experts, who often can’t really explain how they do what they do, or much remember what it was like to be where you are.
If you want to learn to improve your skill, it is better to learn from somebody who is not that far ahead of you in skills. Not the ones way ahead; not the experts. Learn instead from the ones making the footprints in the sand that you can still see.
