Posting for the sake of posting

Many of the successful people that I really respect have one thing in common; they all are highly talented at whatever they specialize in because they have put their lives into it. 

There are a lot of talented people in the world, but the ones that I respect the most are people who I know started small, they started as nobodies, just like me, and became what they are today through sheer persistence. Practice makes perfect, and these people are living, breathing examples of how this is true.

A lot of people that I know are often stumped by the great wall that stands in their way of improving themselves, and many give up their dreams because its so difficult to cross over the seemingly thin line from good to great, myself included.

In fact, that line is so universally difficult to cross that there is even a mentality that has evolved from ignoring it completely, settling for the mediocrity of merely being 'good' at things without excelling at anything in particular. This is the 'jack-of-all-trades' mentality, something that I aspired to be when I was younger.

Being my ambition, I eventually succeeded in becoming a jack-of-all-trades not too long ago, being marginally good at almost anything, always able to perform averagely in any situation and never ending up last in anything, and consequently not being the best at anything. 

Life experiences so far has thought me that this is a very mediocre state to be in and I'd not rather excel at a few things and suck at everything else than be ok at everything but not up to standard for anything. While I never get the shame of coming in last or being at the center of attention for all the wrong reasons, I always envy those select few who are so unbelievably good at what they do.

How do I become like them? How do I cross from merely good to great? Like I mentioned earlier, it all comes back to sheer persistence. Do anything, and I mean anything for long enough, and you'll bound to get better at it. "Practice makes perfect." "Big shots are only little shots who keep shooting."

This is so basic and so true that it's almost common sense, but at the same time it seems so stupid that it makes most people react by doubting it, saying "nah, can't be that easy, there must be something extra" after all, even Albert Einstien thinks that its a crazy idea. 

"Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

The thing is, the way the human body works is really amazing. I've come to believe that repetitively doing something will eventually program your body to do the task until it becomes almost automatic. This is how people who constantly practice something makes things that are so difficult to do look so easy, because it is easy for them.

This is where all the concepts such as muscle memory and habit formation come from, from the basic knowledge that we can program our body to move without requiring much concentration, freeing up our concentration for other minute tasks and make decisions on the fly, enabling us to multitask with ease.

Of course, I'm not the first person in the world to realize this, and many sports and physical routines have incorporated mindless practice and repetition in their training, especially for activities that requires dexterity. You know, like playing Starcraft 2. :P Heck, even activities that are not so sports-related such as playing musical instruments and even drawing are well known to improve through doing the same thing over and over again.

What many people don't realize, or refuse to believe, is that this programming is not only applicable to the muscles in our body for physical activities, no. The brain is also a muscle in our body, the most important muscle, in fact, and it, too can be programmed through constant practice. 

The simplest example of this for me is as a gamer, the more you play, the more exposed you are towards any and every situation you can find yourself in while playing, which trains you in making decisions. At first, you might stumble and pause an extraordinarily long time when you face a difficult situation that you haven't come across, but given enough experience, you get better and know how to deal with any situation, cutting your thinking time dramatically. This results in an increase in the ability to make (difficult) decisions on the fly.

What happens is your brain becomes so accustomed to solving problems that certain basic problems that creep up almost every time can be solved almost instantly, and more importantly, without any noticeable effort, freeing up your brainpower to think of the more difficult problems, saving time and energy~  Sounds familiar? This is exactly what we've been doing all our lives when we study mathematics. Until the calculator was invented (or allowed in school), that is ^^;

So yeah, if you wanna get good at something, just keep doing it non-stop. Don't get discouraged when you suck, and most importantly (the most important ingredient is coming, the 72 herbs and spices of success, get your notepad ready ladies and gentlemen), learn from your mistakes! 

I think another reason why repetition is such an integral part of success apart from muscle memory is the opportunity it gives us to pinpoint what's wrong or what's missing, and giving us chances to try out what works~ :D

And a final thing to add, I mentioned in an earlier post that constantly doing something will increase your mental stamina in doing it, saying bullshit like if you study for 1 hour every day, that grueling, boring and distraction filled hour will eventually fly by very easily and before you know it, you can easily study for even 2 hours when you have the mood *o* That's tied into this concept of persistence as well. Its not muscle memory or brain power, so what is it? Perception? Mentality? Maybe it trains our.. soul @w@ lol the hell

Ok, I know I'm at my limits of blogging when the crap starts spewing and the emoticons get unleashed so.. Ganbatte everyone! *_*9 don't give up~ fighting~ I'm persisting too, trying to post something, every (week) day on two blogs.. XD