You don’t need to waste your time on people who only want you around when it fits their needs.
Familiarity vs Mastery: Break the “I Know” Mindset
It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”— Epictetus
Want to know the biggest block to growth? These two words:
“I know”
I constantly encounter this phrase from students in the classes I teach, especially where we work on our foundational movements. I hear it from fellow coaches when discussing how to improve class experience. I hear it from myself, even, as I receive critique and feedback about the things I need to work on, and see it sometimes in my practice as I avoid working certain skills.
In some cases it’s because we think we know better, in others its because we think we know more, and sometimes it’s because we think we know enough. And while this I Know mindset might block out unuseful, unsolicited advice, it also makes us blind and deaf to information that might actually help us grow.
The I Know mindset most commonly emerges in places where we long to appear competent, superior, or one of the group. It feeds on our fear of failure and shame, as well as our resistance to critique and lack of humility. It grows in our lack of self-awareness. And it kills any hope for achieving mastery–in your movement, work, and life.
Familiarity vs Mastery
The I Know Mindset is wild.
During class yesterday we worked on our jumping. As I began reviewing good form and walking through the lesson, one student pointed out that we learned jumping last week and that they wanted to learn something new. In response, I began setting up a number of different challenges. I walked over to a rail and asked-can you jump to this and land without falling? I pointed to the steps – can you jump up these steps, 2,3,4 at a time all the way to the top without stopping? Jump and land while ducking? Jump with one leg? Precisely?
It’s easy to confuse familiarity with mastery. My student understood the fundamental elements of jumping but lacked the ability to masterfully deploy his skills across a number of situations. His ‘I Know’ mindset limited his vision.
‘I know’ is often a declaration that we are superior to practice, that we have completed the circle, that there is nothing left to learn from the knowledge we already have.
Yes, developing brand new skills can be very exciting. It expands language, reveals new challenges, and, without doubt, can assist in helping overcome tougher physical, intellectual, and motivational plateaus.
But, if you are to truly master your movement or mind and achieve life-long, sustainable physical and mental fitness, you must be consistently developing both laterally and deeply. It requires coming from a place of constant inquiry and the rejection of the ‘I Know’. It requires constantly seeking out how to see differently, do better, create new things with old tools.
The work on our minds and bodies only completes when life completes.
Do Better
Ask Yourself: Where in your life are you saying “I Know?” What triggers it (desire to belong, to appear competent, boredom, etc)?
Find new places to test out old skills, new people to talk through established beliefs. Try different approaches, even if you think your approach is better.Take your skills and practice in a new location
“When you really know somebody you can’t hate them. Or maybe it’s just that you can’t really know them until you stop hating them.” – Orson Scott Card
There is a great podcast interview with Laura Dern where she talks about actively seeking out characters who she initially hates, often out of a desire to understand them, and hopefully come to love them.
If you put someone on a pedestal they have no choice but to look down on you
“What counts more than style is whether architecture improves our experience of the built world; whether it makes us wonder why we never noticed places in quite this way before.” – Ada Huxtable
“The pencil and the computer are, if left to their own devices, equally dumb and only as good as the person driving them.” – Norman Foster
2013.07.12 On Making Plans and Anxiety
Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.
— President Dwight D. Eisenhower
This.
I am starting to recognize planning or, really, lack thereof, is one of the larger sources of anxiety in my life. Most of us like to make plans, set up lists of things that need to happen, or create scenarios of how a certain event should go. Back in January I decided I would drive all the way down to Texas (from NYC) and back over the course of 2 weeks to attend an event. The weeks leading up, I planned the shit out of this journey. I figured out sleeping accommodations, best routes, places to eat, people and sights to see. I planned and planned in hopes of making my journey as smooth as possible.
However, planning, or over-planning, in my case, worked to my detriment. I created absolute-scenarios, with no wiggle room, what-if backups, and built-in flexibility. We departed NYC a lot later than we were supposed to (3 days late in fact). To me, I thought eh not too bad, we can make that through… But when over the journey we decided to detour through Georgia to pick up another person, got stopped by the police in Tennessee, couldn’t make it to our sleeping arrangements in time, and had our tires wear too thin, I slipped in to full blown anxiety mode.
This is the place you never want to get. You never want to let your well-intentioned planning to lead to ultimate emotional disaster. This trip ended up being significantly more stressful than I wanted and I ended up spending a lot of time worrying and not enough time enjoying myself.
But planning, when done right, should only increase the opportunity to enjoy without worry. There just so happens to be the right way to plan and the wrong. Here are my tips to making great plans that will reduce your stress and keep you flexible:
1. Write down what you want to do and why
Did you want to take a trip to texas? Meet for drinks? Build a business? Audition for a choir? Get a passing grade on that upcoming test? Write clearly what your ultimate goal/plan/end is. This will give you a good foundation to return to.
Let’s use my trip for an example. I want to drive down to Texas to attend the Parkour Event in San Antonio because I have a little extra money, want to see different parts of the country. Plus I would love to have an adventure with Jesse.
2. Write down your fantasy-scenario, but only with the necessities.
Here you get to daydream a bit. Play out the event from now until finish. What is your most ideal way of seeing things pan out? However, don’t go in to too much detail. Just hit the big ones.
I dreamt that the ride down to texas would be leisurely. We would leave with a week+ of time before the event, arrive at my friends house in Ohio, check out the city, and sleep there a night, we would then drive down to another friend in Kansas, and then finally in to San Antonio. Back up we’d go up the East coast, stopping in South Carolina to see my Aunt and then DC to see my best friend, and finally back to NYC.
Sounds lovely right? And in this broad stroke I didn’t include all the extra stops I’d need, the things I’d want to do in each city–I left the little details to the wind. This ensures you don’t build play-by-play expectations (which 100% of the time fail to live up) and keeps you flexible!
3. If-This, Then-This
Now look at your broad stroke and start playing devils advocate. What if something goes wrong? What if you get sick and can’t study for three days/nights? What if your car breaks down? What if your major investor suddenly falls through?
If-This, Then-This’s are alternate scenarios you build, visualizations you engage in, that allow you to say… if this happens, then this is what we will do. It is a great way to build flexibility in to your plans. The more flexible you are, the less stress it will be when things go wrong.
I should have said, if we can’t make it to ohio on time, then find a hotel nearby where we are and tell my friend ill see her soon. if we can’t make it to ohio at all because we are behind schedule, then we will pass through it briefly (stopping to see a few cool pieces of architecture) and sleep in a different down miles away.
Seems like a stupid exercise, but the more scenarios you can visualize and deal with before they occur, the more relaxed and capable you will be when dealing with them in the future.
4. Establish your Boundaries and non-negotiables
This final step is so important. Do you need to eat by 9pm? Do you need to visit Ohio? Do you need to be partnered up with Acme Adventures Ltd?
The final step in this process is figuring out what your absolutes are. What must you do in order to ensure your happiness and success in this scenario? If not seeing your friend in ohio is going to ruin your entire trip, then make it a priority–make your if-this, then-thats cater to ensuring that you do make it to ohio, sleep over at her house, and see all the amazing architecures that the city has to offer.
And Finally, breathe.
If you get to the point where you still feel overwhelmed, sometimes just stepping back and away is the best thing you can do. Take a deep breath, a nap if necessary, and revisit the issue.
Planning is a tool to help you deal with complex situations. When done correctly, planning will keep you cool and calm in a headache of situation, planning will reduce your worry and keep you focused, planning will help you figure out your next steps. It makes you a more effective problem solver, a more efficient and productive worker, and a more relaxed and flexible traveler!
The trick is to never be finished with your planning. Never come to an end and say, ‘Ah-ha! this is it! This is the final plan!’ You should never have a single, finalized plan that needs to be followed to the T ….for as they say, if it can go wrong, it will. Just keep flexible and let your ‘plan’ be in actuality a big deck of cards that you can pick and choose from as your situation changes.
What Can We Do?
at their best, there is gentleness in Humanity.
some understanding and, at times, acts of
courage
but all in all it is a mass, a glob that doesn’t
have too much.
it is like a large animal deep in sleep and
almost nothing can awaken it.
when activated it’s best at brutality,
selfishness, unjust judgments, murder.
what can we do with it, this Humanity?
nothing.
avoid the thing as much as possible.
treat it as you would anything poisonous, vicious
and mindless.
but be careful. it has enacted laws to protect
itself from you.
it can kill you without cause.
and to escape it you must be subtle.
few escape.
it’s up to you to figure a plan.
I have met nobody who has escaped.
I have met some of the great and
famous but they have not escaped
for they are only great and famous within
Humanity.
I have not escaped
but I have not failed in trying again and
again.
before my death I hope to obtain my
life.
-Charles Bukowski