Defining This Moment
An excerpt from Fully Engaged: Using the Practicing Mind in Daily Life by Thomas Sterner
Any time we develop a new skill, we begin at a place that we will call “no skill.” Moving along the path of mastery is like moving along a time line representing “increments of skill expansion.” I call it this because anything past “no skill” is some level of skill. If you start with nothing, anything you add to that becomes something. Most of the time mastering a skill is not a place that you get to; it is an ever-expanding awareness and understanding of what is possible in the skill itself and of how to execute it more effortlessly.
When you have your first child, as a parent you are starting from a point of no skill. You don’t know how to change a diaper, how to hold a newborn, how to feed her, how much and when to feed her, and so on. Yet very quickly you begin to develop the skills of a good parent. As your child grows you are constantly faced with new situations. You experience the “terrible twos,” the first day at school, the teenage driver, and sending your child off to college. All these fall along the path of mastering parenthood. Just as I discussed in The Practicing Mind, you use the DOC principle: you Do, you Observe, and you Correct over and over again, constantly refining your actions.
The process is the same for everything, whether you are learning a physical skill such as playing golf or a musical instrument or a more abstract nonphysical skill such as dealing with a difficult person, handling stressful situations, or switching careers. Many of the people I work with as a business or life coach are entrepreneurs. They have left corporate jobs and moved on to owning their own businesses. They may have accumulated elements of wisdom and experience that help guide them along the time line, but they are still entrepreneurs for the first time in their life, starting from a place of no skill and immediately moving away from that point on the time line of skill development.
We call this moving forward along the time line “learning.” Learning in itself is a neutral value, with no good or bad nature to it. We decide how we will experience the process of learning, that is, we interpret it; we make judgments about it. But when we are fully engaged in the process of learning something, when we are fully in the moment, we do not experience judgment or the corresponding emotions. Judgments happen outside the process.
When you have your first child, as a parent you are starting from a point of no skill. You don’t know how to change a diaper, how to hold a newborn, how to feed her, how much and when to feed her, and so on. Yet very quickly you begin to develop the skills of a good parent. As your child grows you are constantly faced with new situations. You experience the “terrible twos,” the first day at school, the teenage driver, and sending your child off to college. All these fall along the path of mastering parenthood. Just as I discussed in The Practicing Mind, you use the DOC principle: you Do, you Observe, and you Correct over and over again, constantly refining your actions.
The process is the same for everything, whether you are learning a physical skill such as playing golf or a musical instrument or a more abstract nonphysical skill such as dealing with a difficult person, handling stressful situations, or switching careers. Many of the people I work with as a business or life coach are entrepreneurs. They have left corporate jobs and moved on to owning their own businesses. They may have accumulated elements of wisdom and experience that help guide them along the time line, but they are still entrepreneurs for the first time in their life, starting from a place of no skill and immediately moving away from that point on the time line of skill development.
We call this moving forward along the time line “learning.” Learning in itself is a neutral value, with no good or bad nature to it. We decide how we will experience the process of learning, that is, we interpret it; we make judgments about it. But when we are fully engaged in the process of learning something, when we are fully in the moment, we do not experience judgment or the corresponding emotions. Judgments happen outside the process.
Thomas M. Sterner is the author of Fully Engaged and The Practicing Mind. He is accomplished as a musician, composer, and technician in various fields of music; as a recording and audio engineer; and in athletic pursuits from archery to golf. He speaks around the world on developing focus and discipline and lives in Wilmington, Delaware. Visit him online at practicingmind.com and tomsterner.com.