Straightaways
Gotta keep your eyes on the road, no matter how tempting the scenery. (Image by Albrecht Fietz)
With respect to learning, many of us are familiar with the idea of the plateau.
Your learning progresses quickly at first as you go from total incompetence to moderate competence, motivated by the novelty of the endeavor and the promise of future success.
However, after the initial period of rapid growth, the pace slows. Having established the foundational muscle memory over the course of your first few sleeps, your physical prowess at the new skill is now building only in tiny increments. Increases to knowledge and stamina are similarly measured, as opposed to the leaps and bounds you saw earlier.
Such a plateau is discouraging and totally normal. This is where you settle in for the long haul if you are committed to growing beyond the beginner level in your chosen skill.
However, there is another shape to the learning landscape. Unlike the plateau, this one is not seen from the side view over time. This one is discovered in the moment, in the driver’s seat as you’re moving along. This is the straightaway.
The straightaway is a burst of accelerated performance that emerges out of the day-to-day drudgery of an extended period of plodding progress. After slowly navigating switchbacks, steep grades, and obstacles in the road, you find yourself speeding along straight ahead on a smooth surface. You can just hit the gas and cruise.
The straightaway sometimes means you’ve broken through the plateau completely, but not always—especially with skills that take years to master. Within a short period of time—potentially measured in minutes—you have to slow down again and make your way through a poorly maintained byway. But for a few minutes, you experienced the payoff of your efforts. It’s encouraging and motivating if you understand the context.
The usual pattern of learning is going to be two steps forward and a step back, roughly speaking. That means that even most of the gains experienced in a straightaway will fade the next day. However, in those moments when you are totally warmed up and “on,” you can achieve things that have never been possible for you. You can get a glimpse of your future mastery, which motivates you to rise even higher in the moment. Fueled by intense focus and the euphoria of accomplishment, you’re moving past your established level of stamina and competence and into a new realm, if only temporarily.
The first important thing about a straightaway is to recognize that you’ve hit one. It is not the time to quit while you’re ahead or back off and rest. It’s not the time to freak out and question your ability. It is the time to push yourself, because you’re feeling amazing. If you set a new challenge in front of yourself, you’ll probably hit it. Go for it, even if it wasn’t in the plan!
The second important thing about a straightaway is to recognize when you’re back to that point of diminishing returns and it’s over. Instead of being disappointed that the period of peak performance didn’t last, you can appreciate that it happened and start laying the groundwork for the next one.
I’ve experienced straightaways in music, sports, handcrafts, writing, language learning, tidying, and just about every other skill I’ve engaged in. It’s in the moment where, after a few days of playing a classical piano piece with careful, painstaking attention to each note, I’m able to move the metronome faster and faster over the course of fifteen minutes. It’s when I make a decision and am suddenly able to answer ten emails and complete seven related tasks that I’ve been stuck on for weeks. It’s the “kick” at the end of the race that allows me to run faster than I thought I could, knowing it will all be over soon. These moments are glorious.
As wonderful as these straightaways are, it’s important to note that they come from our consistent daily slog, no matter how laborious and lackluster it is sometimes. The mess-ups, false starts, frustration, and failure that we experience on the path of learning are just as necessary, if not as glamorous. We have to trust that these efforts will add up to something—and when they do, we’ve got to lean into it and enjoy it.
