Mindfulness

Path of Mastery

By  | 

We are going to discuss some psychological ideas that will help you stay on the path of  mastery in your chosen undertaking. I will throw out some things for you to consider at the various stages from excited beginner to skilled master. The American way is often to set our sights on a goal and then try to get there as quickly as possible, experiencing distress and unhappiness when we meet roadblocks upon our way. ‘The master at anything was once a beginner’ reminds us that increasing your competency occurs on a continuum. The Western mentality is more likely to conceptualize things as ‘this or that’, so when you see the master you have a hard time visualizing the beginner that still exists within him.

When we see something in front of us, we often ignore all the stages it had to go through to reach its current form. But if we trace backwards we can discover the seed that sprouted and grew into the plant before us. I like using the metaphor of seeds for existential conversations because of the easy to visualize parallel observation that each specific seed can only grow into one kind of plant. A sequoia seed can only become a sequoia tree and a carrot seed can only become a carrot. When you recognize you have seeds of potential lying dormant but waiting to sprout it becomes a question of whether to plant them or keep them in the bucket. Just as important, how are you going to tend to them as they grow?

Here is some brilliant insight by Nietzsche: “We can act as the gardeners of our impulses, and-which few people know-we may cultivate the seeds of anger, pity, vanity, or excessive brooding, and make these things fecund and productive, just as we can train a beautiful plant to grow along a trellis wall…we may let nature take its own course, only trimming and embellishing a little here and there; and finally, without any knowledge or consideration, we may even allow plants to spring up in accordance with their own natural growth and limitations, and fight out their battle among themselves.”
(Nietzsche, The Dawn of Day, Pos 4687 Kindle)

Hopefully this conversation is helping you to consider the power you have as a Self to influence your human development and also consciously influence your skill development in a variety of disciplines. You can choose to raise your awareness and create the optimal conditions for growth. Or you can just float along and let life happen to you. The choice to take an active stand in what you become separates you from every other organism on the planet yet many people are unaware that they have this choice.

Choosing to pursue a new interest or continuing on with a current interest and developing it into an area of mastery is a great way for you to influence your development as a human being, and you will probably notice many benefits in all aspects of your life. I think the single most important factor when determining what you want to pursue is passion. When you are passionate about something you will be much less likely to quit when times get tough. You feel a strong pull to keep going. This is the advice that is usually given to graduate students deciding upon their research projects. You have to feel passionately drawn forward by the subject matter or else all of the tedious work and minute details will start to feel overpowering and highly unpleasant. You are unique and what draws others forward does not have to be what draws you forward. You may not have discovered something you are truly passionate about yet but it does exist and you simply have to open your mind to many more possibilities.

Beginner’s mind is an incredible thing. A passionate, dedicated beginner who is completely open to learning is a sponge. Everything is new and exciting. Possibilities seem limitless. It’s like being a baby, exploring surroundings and taking great joy in everything. Tiny improvements seem monumental because you have no frame of comparison. You are willing to stretch your boundaries and expand your horizons, devoting your entire being to the process. Human babies are meditative. They haven’t been taught differently yet and so they are 100% mindful of their surroundings and interact with their environment with awe. This is one of the reasons many people love to be around young children and babies. Their zest for life is contagious. When you become passionately involved in a new pursuit you get a chance to re-experience being a baby and get to be meditative without even having to think about it.

As I considered the arc that connects the novice to the master it dawned on me that the two states act as foils to each other and share more similarities than differences. They share passion, dedication, approaching the object of practice with wonder and respect, and a heightened, meditative state. True mastery is the fully grown plant that started with the seed of beginner’s mind.

Why do so many people fall short? Why do they begin a new interest with so much excitement only to give it up or accept mediocrity? One of the reasons is that the change in mentality from beginner to what we will broadly call ‘intermediate’ is difficult for many to handle on an unconscious level. Reality starts to diverge from expectations. The honeymoon period ends and the hard work begins. People start to recognize how long the road actually is and the level of dedication that will be necessary. Progress becomes much slower, in part because skill increases that once seemed monumental become commonplace or are glossed over in importance.

I have frequently seen this happen to foreign language learners. At first they are excited, passionate, and most importantly willing to go beyond their comfort zones, talking to everyone. They don’t really know yet how terrible they are at the language so they are not at all embarrassed about speaking. Most native speakers really enjoy talking to someone at this stage. The best parts of their personality come through and their excitement is contagious. But then for many a funny thing happens. They realize their limitations and become less likely to speak or take chances even though they have gotten much better. They notice small errors in grammar and get down on themselves. They want to speak perfectly and since they can’t yet it makes them frustrated. They hesitate and make more errors because they are not in the moment, instead thinking about what they are going to say to make sure there are no mistakes.

Mindfulness is probably your most important ally on the long path of mastery. When you raise your conscious awareness about exactly where you are in the process and exist fully in the moment you can make every stage on the continuum as exciting and rewarding as being a beginner or being a master. A simple change in mentality that makes a monumental difference is to decide your only goal is to be the best you can be where you are right now. You let go of the past and the progress you have made as well as the future and the progress you need to make. It’s great to have mastery as your goal, but recognize that the best way to get there is by inhabiting each stage of your journey fully, doing the best you can in the moment. With this mentality you will always have beginner’s mind and you will always be able to find data points that show you are improving. Instead of getting down on yourself for not having reached a far off goal you feel fulfilled for reaching the goal of dedicating your whole being to what you are doing.

When you make no comparisons or judgments your frustration and impatience will evaporate and be replaced by joy. You will realize that it takes time for a seed to grow into a plant and that the best way to help it is by mindfully tending to it. Realize that wherever you are on the continuum, you can achieve total mastery at that stage by focusing 100% of your being on the act and doing the very best you can.

Related posts:

  1. Self-Actualization Below The Surface To the casual observer, when a seed germinates nothing has changed, the topsoil looks just the same as it did a moment before. But of course everything has changed, the process of growth is now in motion and with a little time and a little luck the plant will poke its head up through the […]...
  2. Now I saw someone repost an article I did called ‘Path of Mastery’ with the added comment ‘Path TO Mastery’ and smiled to myself because I chose the title quite purposefully. Actually the insistence on using the preposition ‘to’ is indicative of how most of us in the West think about life, and changing our mentalities […]...
  3. Waiting Patiently For Human Growth When you plant a seed, you don’t just water it one or two times and then give up, thinking “Obviously it’s never going to sprout.” You know that the process takes time, that even if conditions are optimal it will be months before you see the fruits of your labor. And though you can’t see […]...
  4. Why People Plateau It’s true that there are limits to natural abilities and going too far beyond these limits is difficult, but it’s also true that most people never come close to reaching their full potential. We’re going to use some existential and behavioral ideas to show why people plateau, and show how a simple change in philosophy […]...
  5. Environmental Needs We have said that humans can live under the most varied environmental conditions but this doesn’t mean that they should. From the existential point of view, everyone has their own unique potentialities, their own Self that they are capable of becoming, and from this point of view the goal should be to make environmental conditions as […]...
  6. Watering Plants And Self-Actualization The leaves on the plant are all that are visible to you. If you weren’t familiar with how to take care of plants and were asked to water one you’d be forgiven for only paying attention to the leaves while completely neglecting the roots. In fact this is exactly what many people do the first […]...
  7. Helicopter Parenting And Watering Plants There’s more than one way to kill a plant. We all know that not paying enough attention does the trick. Sooner or later it withers and dies. It sends out plenty of cries for help along the way, communicating its need for proper care and attention in the only language it has at its disposal. […]...
  8. Humility When Starting Out As a general rule novitiates in any discipline think they are much more skilled than they actually are. This is due to the often overlooked philosophical reality that we can’t know what we don’t know. How can I realize that I am lacking when I have no frame of reference to compare myself against? Those […]...
  9. Self-Actualization And Sticking With One Interest If you have spread your time and attention amongst different hobbies, activities, and disciplines throughout your life and gotten pretty good in many of them but reached mastery level in none of them this article is for you. The real question is, what made you switch from one interest to the next before getting far […]...
  10. Seeds Of Potential I have a bunch of packets of different types of seeds that have been sitting in my pantry for the last few years and have been contemplating planting some of them this spring. The interesting idea for a conversation about self-actualization is that they have been lying dormant all this time and they’ll continue to […]...
  11. The Aha! Moment Everyone loves the ‘aha!’ moment. What was once obscure suddenly becomes crystal clear. The curtains part and it’s easy to see everything onstage. Eureka! The paradox is that while the ‘aha!’ moment seems to come out of nowhere, while it feels like a gift from the heavens, while it’s experienced as effortless, it’s actually the […]...
  12. Gaining Mastery The zone of proximal development is used as a framework to help parents and teachers understand how to support and foster learning. You can easily apply the model to your own life to help you acquire and master new skills and see what may have contributed to your successes or failures in past endeavors. Ideally […]...
  13. Attaining Mastery Even if you focus all your energy on one pursuit, consistently giving everything you have to it, the result might still be failure. If you do like most people do, starting up that new pursuit while continuing to dabble in many other pursuits at the same time, the result will almost definitely be failure. We […]...
  14. Novice to Mastery “I have learned the novice can often see things that the expert overlooks. All that is necessary is not to be afraid of making mistakes, or of appearing naive.” – Abraham Maslow If you fear making mistakes or being made to look foolish then you fear being a novice. The problem is that all roads […]...
  15. Keep Going People usually begin pursuing a new interest with high hopes and aspirations. You are not going to find too many people starting out who believe from the get go that they are going to quit. But this is exactly what happens all the time, and many spend their entire lives bouncing from one new interest […]...
  16. Complacency When you’re just starting out at an endeavor you don’t feel complacent, you feel motivated. You have what Thich Nhat Hanh calls beginner’s mind. You’re not afraid to make mistakes or look foolish in front of others, in part because you’re so excited about trying something new and in part because you’re not yet really […]...
  17. Follow Your Own Path Don’t let your important life decisions be determined by people with their own agendas or by those who only have a passing interest in what you have going on. It’s tempting to do because it frees you of the heavy burden of existential responsibility, but if you don’t follow your own path you will end […]...
  18. Walk Your Own Path “No one can construct for you the bridge upon which precisely you must cross the stream of life, no one but you yourself alone.” – Frederick Nietzsche Subordination in all its forms is usually cast in a negative light but the truth is that most of us are desperate to subordinate ourselves in some way […]...
  19. Find Your Path It’s pretty alarming how many of us do not find our jobs meaningful or challenging. Imagine you had access to a time machine and buzzed back to a conference with the fifteen year old version of you. Would you be proud to report on the path you have chosen? Would you have a few words […]...
  20. Choosing The Right Career Path It’s a fact that many people who choose their own career paths don’t have much passion for or even interest in what they do for a living. The most important psychological reason why is that societal forces are powerful, all too powerful. They usually have more say over conscious thought and intention than our own […]...
Related Items