So I have plateaued in virtually every aspect of my life.
It is true in everything that I am doing, be it relational, professional, personal, artistic, athletic, intellectual. It does not matter the activity or thing, the simple fact is that I no longer seem to be making progress in any of these areas.
Having realized this, it bothers me. One of the underlying assumptions of life is that over time, we get better at things from doing them more. This, apparently, is not always the case - which adds another splendid layer to my general malaise about the condition of my life.
What to do about this situation? There is the rub, of course - it seems like just more effort doing the same things is not going to result in improvement becomes, at some point, a waste of time. And books that tell you "how to" do not seem to address this particular impediment to further progress. The assumption - and I have read a number of them - simply seems to be that you will continue to get better as time goes on.
Which means, of course, that I have to examine what and how I do things.
The main thrust of most such things is that you need to spend more time doing such things, or do such things "smarter". I am not sure what "smarter" really means other than do not repeat the things time after time hoping for a different result. Which, of course, may be my problem as I tend to do things by rote time and time again, because that is what I was taught to do.
How do I shake free of this plateau?
If I am perfectly honest with myself, there is actually a two-fold path here. The first step is to find a way to vary the things that I do in support of the activities. This actually looks like two things - on the one hand, continue to do the work, spend the time. On the other, change up the activities that you are doing. Be original, for goodness sake: develop some drills for basic activities and just do those instead of grinding through the whole practice, or making up a novel way to keep my engagement and do things in a different way that entertains, or even (Heaven forfend) just doing a part that you really like doing occasionally instead of "eating your broccoli" all the time. The danger of plateaus are not just that we stop growing, but that we lose interest.
The other path? This one will seem exceptional foolish: sleep more and eat better. Part of any loss of energy (at least for me) is specifically sleep and (to a lesser extent) diet related. To get better one needs to keep their energy levels up. Much as I hate to admit it, for me that means close to eight hours of sleep a night and probably a good deal more protein that I am currently eating. Physical drives performance.
We will see if this strategy works. All I can say at the moment with definition is that what I am currently doing is not getting the job done - and I need options. I still have too far to go to be satisfied with how things are now.
I don't know how old you are. I am assuming and guessing you are younger than I am. One of the hardest things for me to grasp recently was I am now to the point that making progress on any skill with the exception of a new one is almost impossible. My eye sight is slowly going, my stamina is as well. It sucks :)
ReplyDeleteI am slightly below a half century, if that is any help....
ReplyDeleteInteresting that you perceive that you are making the progress in the new skills. I have found that as well - I wonder why that is?
And yes, the eyesight is a bit of a pain. Stamina I can do something about, eyesight not so much.
You are a bit younger than me as I just hit 50 last week, but don't tell anyone. I just don't have the means to power through inexperience like I used to.
DeleteI like that phrase Preppy - "I just Don't have the means to power through inexperience like I used to." I am totally borrowing it.
DeleteMmmm interesting points TB and it seems (deduced from other posts) that you and I are perhaps cut from the same cloth. I too am fast approaching the century divided by two mark, the coming month of May in fact, the word 'bugger' seems apt at this point.
ReplyDelete"The danger of plateaus are not just that we stop growing, but that we lose interest." this stood out by a long way and I certainly saw myself reflected in this line of words TB. I do not have any gems of wisdom or magical potions that may aid this malaise although stopping is not an option. I also think that perhaps attempting thinks from a different angle would help as would trying new things. But I also have to ask, does stopping improving at something truly mean that interest is lost? After all simple pleasure can be obtained from the simplest of tasks that you have done many times before. Perhaps I'm rambling a tad but hey we're getting near to an age when we're expected to let our marbles become mis-laid.
First of all, thanks for the kind words as always John. I appreciate your thoughtful comments.
ReplyDeleteYou are right that stopping is not an option - I have no intention of stopping. And perhaps I am letting my perceptions about some of my life - say work, which (as we have discussed before) I have this old-fashioned notion of the meritocracy but which in fact never plays out. Part of why we do some things the same time over and over is simply, like you say, that we derive simple pleasure from them. Perhaps there is a part here that simply needs to let of the expectation of predetermined improvement and leave behind instead the simple fact of the doing of the thing as the pleasure itself.
And there is no worry about rambling here - my marbles have been mislaid for years at this point...