Beginners mind
Do you remember the last time you learnt something new? Do you remember that feeling inside, the initial excitement as you really started to get to grips with the subject, really began to understand it?
There comes a point in learning any new skill or subject when we shift from a journey of discovery to a place of recollection. This is classified as “expertise”, controversially quoted as taking 10,000 hours to achieve according to Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers.
Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness
Being an “expert”
I am Rob Huzzey, Web Developer for a leading Theme & Theatre provider based in Kent and I am lucky enough to have a career that involves constant learning due to the changes in the technology I use (here’s how I keep up).
Often, I find that it’s impossible to learn everything about a new framework (this recent article sums it up “The state of Javascript in 2015") so I will only learn enough required to get going. This is perfectly acceptable, and something experience over the years has taught me.
As developers, we often face situations where we need to use unfamiliar code. A question will arise during these moments. How much time should I invest in understanding the code that I’m about to use? A typical answer is learn enough to start coding; then explore that topic further when time permits. — Cho S. Kim
We should use our previous experience to help understand new topics, even if that experience is in another field of expertise. We should draw on previous knowledge to get us “up to speed” on a subject whilst keeping an open mind and not allow assumptions to get in the way of learning the subject at a deeper level when necessary.
The journey of discovery
How often have you told somebody “just do it like this”. Have you just limited their journey of discovery?
When we become “experts”, we are in danger of making assumptions based on our experience and stopping the exploration of possibilities because we “already know that” or “did that before”.
Ever wondered why kids have a fascination with playing with cardboard boxes? It’s because they haven’t been limited to thinking of them as something to put stuff in.
Our experience in other subjects can act as “cue cards” for our new learnings, I’m often remarking to myself “oh, that’s like x!” when I see a familiarity in learning something new, the whole time still keeping the “open mindedness” of an amateur on the subject at hand.
Being an amateur
Being solely focussed on one subject of expertise, in my opinion, is actually detrimental for your understanding of that subject in depth. Being an amateur in another, seemingly unrelated field, can give you information to draw upon, even analogies to really help you get better at the thing you are trying to learn.
For example, professional boxers have been known to take ballet lessons to improve their footwork in the ring! They take what they already know from the boxing gym and merge it with the practice in the dance studio to “float like a butterfly” in the ring, arguably giving them an advantage.
The world is changing at such a rapid rate that it’s turning us all into amateurs. Even for professionals, the best way to flourish is to retain an amateur’s spirit and embrace uncertainty and the unknown.
Even if you are not learning a new subject to supplement your current understanding, it’s often a good idea to have other hobbies or interests purely to help you maintain an “amateur spirit” — A “Beginners Mind”.
Having a “Beginners Mind”
In order to be comfortable with rapid changes in technology, I adopt what’s known as a “beginners mind”. In Zen Buddhism this is called “shoshin”:
Shoshin (初心) It refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even when studying at an advanced level, just as a beginner in that subject would.
Having a beginners mind does not mean you are a beginner. Even an “expert” with years of experience can have a “beginners mind”.
Next time you find yourself with a problem, tackle it as though you had never encountered the problem before. Have a beginners mind in your approach and combine this with your expertise and experience and you will come up with a new way to solve it!
