Practice is overrated

Practice is overrated. Since I was kid I was told to practice. Play more piano, write more essays, play more tennis. Although these tellers were all well-meaning, their telling was woefully incomplete.

We need to tell our kids -- actually everybody -- to fail. More precisely, we need to fail trying new things.

Why do we need to try new things? The common idea how the journey from beginner to master is this:

Although a useful approximation, it is incomplete. The actual journey looks like this:

So how does it feel psychologically to be on this journey?

When you start off, any progress feels exhilerating. Yes it's going slow, and that can be frustrating, but you're starting from 0 so the only way is up. Once you hit that inflection point you start loving what you do. But after a while that steep ascent to mastery starts flattening out. You're reaching the first peak on you journey.

After reaching that first peak in your mastery you need to become a novice again. You need to go down. For a pianist that means learning to play a new composer, for a software developer that means learning a completely new language, for a chef that means exploring a new cuisine, for a painter that means trying new colors.

In learning this something new, you get worse. You fumble in the dark, like you did when you just got started.

And this where it gets tricky. Most people --after finally reaching that first hill-- panic and stop.

The smartest child will be the fastest on the top of that first hill. The most courageous child will keep going and reach the top of the mountain.

To summarize,