Mistakes Hide Mistakes

When you’re developing a skill, there are some mistakes you won’t be able to make until you get familiar with the basics. A common example is with romantic (or platonic) relationships: It’s tough to encounter the challenges of a three year relationship without being decent at flirting and starting conversations.

Part of why this happens is that complex exercises of skill depend on simpler ones. It’s hard to have a complicated relationship with someone you’ve met once. That complicated relationship is the product of many simpler interactions. You need to be successful enough at those simple interactions that the relationship has a chance to progress to a more complex territory. 

Another part is that the more unusual a situation, the less frequently it will happen (by definition!). You have to stay with someone for a while to see major life shifts: switching jobs, relationships waxing and waning, tragedies and triumphs. Arguably, being skilled is the ability to handle unusual situations. You need to be able to keep the plates spinning through usual times to get to the unusual ones. 

Encountering unusual situations is a crucial part of developing expertise – it reinforces what’s normal and adds to a library of situations you’ve dealt with. Once the library gets big enough, you start to see elements of old situations in new situations.

But, because unusual situations show up less frequently, you will often make mistakes when you encounter them. No one is good at a new challenge the first time they face it. What we can take from this is that making new or weird mistakes is not a sign that we’re bad at something, but rather the opposite. Making new mistakes is a sign that we’re covering new ground and getting better. 

So if you want to get really good at a skill, the first step is to build up stamina for practice. The ability to practice more frequently and for longer stretches of your time will help you rehearse the basics to the point where they’re automatic and give you the ability to practice for long enough that you can see the unusual situations that are so important for growth.