Practicing Mistakes
Do you believe you can improve your abilities, or do you believe your talents are limited? Apparently, your capacity to improve at a given skill can be hampered by the belief that your talents are fixed, meaning that practice won’t make you better. Score another one for self-fulfilling prophesies.
TEDx Talk celebrity and author Eduardo Briceño described the psychology of this attitude about one’s ability to improve performance in his ten-year-old presentation that has been viewed 4.7 million times so far. Most of his talk then was based on the previous work of social psychologist Carol Dweck, whom he credits appropriately, especially mentioning her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (2006).
Briceño’s TEDx Talk is here:
Briceño has since written his own book, published just this month, further examining the value and purpose of practice as it pertains to achievement: The Performance Paradox: Turning the Power of Mindset into Action. The popularity of his TED talks persuaded publisher Random House, and the early reviews for the book are strong, as he promotes the book on podcast circuit.
Thanks to Anne in comments for the tip. She originally heard of him on the Something You Should Know podcast recently. The advance discussion of the book is quite appealing.
Briceño has refined the concepts from Dweck’s mindset research, exploring the differences in learner attitudes and how different learners practice. Practice may or may not make perfect, depending on how you do it. Top performers don’t just practice as a way to repeat, but to spend more time working on areas where they make the most mistakes. Top athletes, for instance, you won’t see working on repetition if you watch them practice, but instead making lots of mistakes in order to improve areas where they are weakest.
This has the makings of another book that might end up on my to-read list. Thanks to Anne for the suggestion.
Good morning, everyone. Lots of rain last night here. I hope it didn't rain on the Girl Boy Scouts up on the New River ...
Busy day planned here.
Want to be amazed AND smile? https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/woman-wrote-please-write-me-on-an-egg-in-1951-someone-finally-did/