Consistent Experiences vs. Varied Experiences
There are two approaches to maximizing your abilities:
- Consistent Experiences: "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." — Bruce Lee
- Varied Experiences: "I’m always doing things I can’t do. That’s how I get to do them.” – Pablo Picasso
These differences occur in two ways: you can do the same activity consistently to master it vs. doing it in a different way to be able to perform under a variety of conditions, or you can do one activity to improve in one area or various activities to improve in multiple areas.
The science shows some interesting findings about these options. Most people are familiar with the chart of improvement where you continue to improve but have diminishing returns as you improve:
Now, this is where the science gets really interesting: they have tested practice under identical conditions and under varying conditions, such as basketball players taking free throws vs. shooting from a variety of locations. In those situations, they actually found that the shooting under a variety of conditions improved the overall performance of the player more than the consistent experience.
And so this is where the decision to repeat or diversify becomes a tricky one: how much variation can keep you engaged and help you improve, and how much will begin to take you away from improving in one area and begin improving in others (or, at worst, regress in all areas). This is a similar trade-off with effort and rest because rest is necessary to improve (and too little will hurt your growth), but too much will cause you to regress. So the variation in your experiences has a similar trade-off: you get better in many areas or for many situations, but it might come at the cost of performance in specific areas.
So, this is where your decision making comes in: if you want to be academically inclined, how much do you want to specialize in one area vs. study multiple disciplines vs. have a family? Depth will come from specialization; breadth from broader studies. Family time might, unfortunately, be a trade-off where you have to sacrifice a little bit of your studies. These are the tough decisions that come with humans’ limited lifespans.
But you do have one tool in your arsenal that can help: boredom. Boredom seems like a curse because it is the cause of many bad behaviors, such as criminal activity, promiscuity, and drug use. But it does serve a positive purpose: it tells you that you’re not growing. And that’s good feedback if you are reading a new book and you find out that you pretty much know everything in it already. So you can then skim through it and see if there are any parts that pique your interest, getting to the new knowledge faster. Or you might be done shooting free throws and want to practice something else. Or maybe you want to play a new game or try a new exercise in your routine. In any of these circumstances, you are using feedback from your emotions to help you know when you want to continue and when you want to mix it up.
So if you want to be the absolute best in one specific activity, the fastest way to get there is to keep practicing it. If you want to get better in a complex activity that includes multiple facets, like a sport, you want to diversify your practice to get better at many aspects of the game. Diversifying further, such as practicing other sports or exercises, can increase your performance, help you recover from the repetitive strain injuries associated with consistent practice, and possibly help you mentally and physically for future practice in the other area. Rest outside of the field can help you to recover. It’s the right combination of all of these capabilities that help you maximize your performance, factoring in elements like your physical capabilities and willpower to determine how much you can push yourself in any single area.