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It is natural for every kid topeter-886132_1280 dream of growing up to a respectable status, have lots of possessions and make decisions. What I did not realise was the amount of responsibilities that came with growing up. The first big desire for any one to grow up is the desire to be independent, not be told what to do instead do what they want. It was always about the desire to be independent but oblivious to the price to pay for being independent. People will stop worrying about us less, we will be expected to stand for ourselves and care for dependent ones as grown ups. Being a grown up is a responsibility than a perk.

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At work similar thing happens, we join as an intern with a big dream. As an intern we will be told what to do and there is a limited scope of influence at work but at the same time there are less decisions that needs to be taken. As we gain experience the sphere of influence of our action increases, so do the expectations from the others to become effective individual contributors.

The term ‘individual contributor’ is largely misunderstood, it does not mean ‘leave me alone to do my work at my style’, instead it is a responsibility to reach the individual goals while working along with others. If there is a need for constant nudge from the managers, co-ordinators or facilitators to be reminded about one’s work and progress then it is a telltale sign that an individual has not grown up. When gaining experience what will matter most is the ability to accept responsibility and be accountable for signed up work, the independence that comes up with that is just a side effect not a right by itself.

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Kent Beck gives a good introduction to adoption of XP through an analogy of learning to drive. A brief extract can be found here. The learning to drive analogy is applicable to any discipline, where the instincts have to take over conscience in other words the motor/muscle memory will play a bigger part than a conscious effort, but when demanded we need to rewire our learnings. Music is also analogous to this.

The steps in becoming a good in something.

Start immediately

Procrastination affects a lot of us and one of the key catalyst for someone to procrastinate is the idea of perfection. This is because of the fear of failure and being judged, so people end up reading and studying about something instead of learning by doing. Unless we get into something mission critical or any action that will cause any irreversible consequence then we should not hesitate to start. By starting immediately, we will be forced to learn the absolute minimum that is required to start instead of getting equipped with a world of knowledge.

Be predictably slow at first

There is a sense of satisfaction in moving up the levels, so people immediately step up their levels without getting a good understanding of what they learnt. When I was learning to drive, I was never allowed to shift to the 3rd gear until I was able to drive the vehicle without getting stalled in the lower gears. Same goes to my piano tutor who never allowed me to step up the tempo until I never missed a note. This made sure that whatever I had got it into my head is done the right way, I was very angry with my tutors as they never allowed me to step up quickly but in hindsight it makes sense; unlearning something learnt wrong takes a long time than learning it to do the right way.

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When stepping up, change only one parameter at a time

We learn more and more faster and deeper when we are able to understand the effects of our actions. The more we are able to identify the cause and effects, the better is our ability to sense the patterns and apply learnings at a more abstract level. Stepping up the learning through one parameter a time allows us pinpoint the cause and effect, helping us to save energy. Someone shifting to 3rd gear and also driving in rain for the first time on a slippery road will not lead to effective learning.

Once comfortable, keep getting exposed to new conditions.

When we are comfortable in a new skill, chances are high that we get stagnant. Routinely exposing us to newer challenges helps to sharpen as well as prepare us for unknowns. The comfort zone is where the instincts take over the conscience, but when the situation demands we need to switch back to the conscience and make quick judgements from our experience. Good drivers are not usually worried about bad weather or poor visibility, instead they know when to stop driving and when to carry on.

Listen to others, over time we may pickup bad habits.

Habits change as soon as the feedback stops, I used to drive without co-passengers for an extended period of time and developed a tendency to jump over potholes and speed breakers. This annoyed my co-passengers and until I heard from them, I never realized that I had developed a bad habit. It is very difficult to sustain best practices or get a new one, getting a mentor or coach or even just plainly listening to other’s observation will help us a lot.

Never underestimate the power of a coach or a mentor

The coach in the operating room published by the New Yorker magazine tells about how an accomplished surgeon realised that even the best tennis players had coaches and decided to take a coach with him to the operating room. The doctor was doing a thyroid operation which he has done many times and the coach had never done that type of surgery so there was no expectation on useful feedback. At the end of the surgery the coach surprised with a lot of detailed observations which were overlooked and missed by the team. If we are to be professionally better at something then get coaches, does not matter who we are or how successful we are.

When learning stops, we regress

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During my visit to a library in my neighbourhood, I usually see two contrasting groups. One is a group of retired men mostly in their 60’s and 70’s and other is a group of college students. The contrast is not in the age but the life in the togetherness of these people. The retired men’s group is lively, people are chatting and arguing, cracking jokes at each other. The student’s group on the other hand was too silent with sporadic comments like ‘Hey check what I have just shared’. The student’s group was hanging out in the virtual world in texts and memes.

We always seek joy, we will always find ways to remain happy but we give more weightage to frivolous joy than momentous ones. Short term goals or immediate gratification gives joy because of the reward cycle of our brain; we are trained to get satisfaction by being busy and believe we can get great output just by rote activity, just a vestige of industrial revolution practices.

I read this story somewhere sometime ago — A poet who has not produced much in the recent times took a boat and rowed to the middle of a lake. He thought the distance from the people and quiet atmosphere will lead him to good train of thoughts. It was nightfall so he lit a candle, pulled out his notebook to write but no thoughts occurred to him. He was flipping between his old poems for inspiration and also closed his eyes tyring too hard to concentrate. Hours went by and nothing happened, he thought reading some book will help him and started to read, but it got windy and he had a hard time to keep the candle from getting out. After several minutes of struggle to keep the candle burning, he gave up in frustration and the wind blew the candle out.

moon-165487_640Until the candle was burning bright, he was missing a beautiful sight of the full moon which gracefully illuminated the entire lake, the valley and the surrounding hills. That whole evening he had been waiting for an inspiration to write and it was just lying in front of him. The wind by blowing out the candle, did the trick; the sight in front of him was so spectacular that it inspired the poet to produce one of his greatest works.

 ‘I am not producing anything creative, so why ask me not to browse and consume information always? I enjoy this more than our conversations’ — This is a common retort when you remind people to be present in a situation and not fiddling with their gadgets. It is gadget to be very specific as books are not very destructively distracting, books cannot cater to a short attention span and can not provide on demand entertainment.

A study was done on rats for addictive behaviour, a lever was provided in a cage which provided a dose of cocaine when pulled. On discovering this, the rats kept pulling the lever for more and more doses of cocaine until it killed them. Our neural pathways for reward is not very different from that of rats, we would soon get hooked on to joyful behaviour even though it will cause us harm in the long run. The only way to get away from this is to consciously avoid the ‘pull to refresh’ hooks in the gadgets and set some quality time for leisure. Fortunately delayed gratification is an acquired skill, there are enough studies like ‘The standford marshmallow’ experiment suggest that people disciplined enough are way more successful.

Leisure is one of the best rewards, it is very hard earned and should be spent wisely. There was once a time when people predicted that the world will be with so many machines that people can accomplish their work within few hours of work everyday and pursue their hobbies; fast forward to the digital revolution, the work and leisure no longer has boundaries, in fact there are no boundaries and distances at all.

If socializing & leisure is forgotten due to blurred boundaries then the only reward we have is to keep ourselves busy. We reach out to our pockets to consume information to gratify the need to have a sense of usefulness. That leads us nowhere, it is just being busy for the sake of busyness, some sense of self worth.

It is okay to say that we have free time, of all the years I spent when I look back; the only thing in memories are those mindless chats, sports, games, hobbies etc. None of the memories like going through social feeds for hours together is so memorable, those seem like a blip when looking back compared to the memorable ones however small in duration they were, seems very vivid. By being deliberately busy we are just passing time, not living.