Climbing The Mountain
Learning a new skill is like climbing a mountain, including some rock climbing
It is 12 years ago — just after moving to Australia. I am excited about my first real job as a software engineer and the programming language is Ruby. I have never used Ruby before. It is time to learn. So I read. I code. I experiment. I re-read. I re-code. On and on.
For the better part of 3 years, most of my evenings (and days) are taken up by learning. And then, finally, I feel like I have a decent handle on the language and programming in general. I am far away from being an expert. But I have enough knowledge to know what I am doing.
I have (partly) ascended The Mountain of Learning.
The Mountain of Learning is one of my favourite metaphors, and if you ask any of my teammates, they have heard it at least once.
Here is how the metaphor works:
- When you first start out learning a new skill, all you see is the base of a mountain. The mountain represents mastery of the skill.
- The first part of it — the base — might be steep or flat.
- The majority of the mountain is covered in clouds. You have no idea how high it is or whether it is a gentle slope or the Matterhorn.
- Only during the ascend, you will be able to see the full mountain. The scope of your learning becomes clear.
Bring Your Rock Climbing Gear
To make matters worse, each mountain is different — as in real life. However, in 99% of scenarios, things get hard at one point or another.
Put on your rock climbing gear, it is going to get serious.
Some mountains start out very gently only to become a cliff face half way through. A few sports fall into this category, for example, tennis. Anyone can hit a ball without much practice. But to become great at it, you need a lot of time and learning.
Other mountains are very hard to begin with and then become a lot flatter towards to top. I am thinking about some text editors or programming languages here, like VIM or Haskell. For most of us, a rather big change in thinking is necessary to get going. But once you get past that initial hurdle, things come a bit more easily.
The bottom line is this: There will be a time where leisurely hiking up the hill is not an option anymore. We lose confidence in ourselves. We feel we are not smart enough. Our motivation drops and we decide to give up. Learning this new darn thing is just too hard.
Now, I cannot help in making the climbing of the mountain any easier. (If you know someone who can, I am keen to hear about it!)
What helps me is to remember my mountain metaphor.
I know the mountain is not fully visible to begin with.
I know it will get rather tough at some point.
I know there are times when I want to give up.
I need to bring my rock climbing gear.
