Are you ready for a journey?
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"Its not the destination, its the journey that is important".
Mastery: The Keys To Success and Long-Term Fulfillment, by George Leonard, communicates the very same idea in a way that has me eagerly looking forward to each step of the journey.
Our lives consist of many many days and in each of those days, hours, and minutes. In that time we are given the chance to learn new skills or to Master them, as Leonard would put it.
The big idea of the book is to recognize that learning new skills is a process, one that involves brief spurts of progress followed by a decline to a plateau that is somewhat higher than the origin of the curve. Much of our time will be spent on the plateau, that is, doing our due diligence practicing even when there is no apparent progress.
The problem?
With time our societies have gotten hungry for instant gratification. We want to learn it all, see it all, and have it all. And we want it NOW! Just look at the content on television. In an hour or less lives are changed, people are made rich as if these things can happen in the blink of an eye.
Mastery means that we must learn to enjoy the time spent on the plateau and avoid the traps of wanting to quickly.
The Five Keys to Mastery
Instruction — Find yourself a mentor. Someone that can teach you the ways of the skill or skills that you seek.
Practice — Leonard calls to mind a different view of the word practice. Rather then thinking of practice as something that you do. Think of it as something that you have, something that you are.
In this sense, the word is akin to the Chinese word tao and the Japanese word do, both which mean, literally, road or path.
Surrender — Make the choice to surrender. This means that you not only surrender to your chosen teacher but also that you be willing to surrender all that you know, so that you might come to higher learning.
Intentionality — This is one of the areas that I most enjoyed about the book because it talked about ideas and techniques that I’ve been experimenting with myself. The basic idea is to have the intention of learning or doing a skill. Close your eyes and visualize yourself doing the thing you want to accomplish–for instance, writing your first book. See yourself doing it and feel the feelings of having accomplished it.
The Edge — The journey is unrelenting practice but it is also a time of adventure. Along the path there will be times that you’ll test your limits and push the envelop.
The lesson in this, for me–and hopefully, for all of us, is our journey is a long-term dedication to the journey and the commitment to honing our skills. Setting foot on the path means forsaking the destruction of instant gratification.
Remember that life is to be enjoyed so go forth and learn–finding joy in it.
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August 20th, 2006 at 10:24 pm
Great ideas set forth Tim. Most of all this should cultivate is a sense of patience and the ability to look beyond our expectations, our egos and even our desires and fears. Of course we should utilize the good skills we have to guide our path. But by approaching every endeavour with an open mind, as free from biases as we can, that we truly absorb the lessons we face and build strong foundations for the next step. For every journey may end but even that endpoint has another beginning over the next hill.
August 22nd, 2006 at 1:37 am
Richard - You’re right to say that these ideas will cultivate a sense of stillness within a person that follows this path. And you touch on the fact that there really is no end. Everything in our lives is a process. Life itself is a process so naturally learning should be approached from this viewpoint of we want to seek more then just understanding.
November 9th, 2006 at 8:55 pm
Tim,
Like you, I have found George Leonard’s writings in Mastery and other places (especially The Way of Aikido, highly recommended by moi) to be enlightening and very helpful when I start to stray from the path.
In fact, I started my blog …no straight lines… (http://nsl.gbrettmiller.com) specifically to address ideas of mastery in the lives of individuals and the operations of organizations. I’d appreciate any thing you might have to add to my discussions there.