Flying Down the Myelin Highway

photo credit: Hljod.Huskona

What are you really good at?

Reading, writing, arithmetic?

Sports, acting, writing?

Thank myelin.

My first post on myelin gave you the basics on what this ‘brain function’ is and I hinted at what it does.  Now here is the amazing part.

First, my interest in this substance is that I see it as the very basis of what coaching is about.  And it supports another conjecture I have written about here.

If something is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.

The oddest part about that statement is that it is actually a prerequisite to excellence to be willing – and able – to fail. Daniel Coyle describes the feeling of what he calls deep practice (more on that later) –

It’s the feeling, in short, of being a staggering baby, on intently, clumsily lurching toward a goal and toppling over. It’s a wobbly, discomfiting sensation that any sensible person would instinctively seek to avoid. Daniel Coyle, The Talent Code

So, what about it? The successful are those that can persevere through those ‘discomfiting’ (I love that word) And keep on truckin’.

The short version, written in a way that I more or less understand it.  I hope you can as well.  So, pick a skill, maybe one you have learned or want to learn.

Unconscious Incompetence

When we first begin to learn something, actually at the point where we are deciding it’s  something that matters and we’re going to master it, we may be thinking it can’t be as hard as it looks.  I remember when I was getting close to the age where driving became a real possibility, my friends and I had the shared idea that it just couldn’t be that big of a deal.

“Ya get in, ya step on the gas, ya steer, and you’re drivin’.  No big deal.” I can remember saying it, or something close to it.  The less than blissful level of unconscious incompetence. The unforgiving realization that you don’t have a clue what you are doing.

Myelin perspective.  You can’t get there from here.  Well, you can but the tiny neuro haulers are doing it on a dark dirt road.  Going is slow.

Conscious Incompetence

You realize now that this is going to take some work.  At least you are at a new level, conscious incompetence.  You don’t know, but you know you don’t know.

Your work is cut out for you, but whatever it is you want to do, it seems to be worth it.  Back to my driving example, I can tell you that at that age, I really wanted my driver’s license.  So we suffer through this embarrassingly clumsy period.  The little truckers in our neuron circuits are getting off the dirt road on to a paved road.  There are even a few bright spots along the way.  It start’s to get easier.

Conscious Competence

As we hang in there, trying to get to the next junction along the road to success.  We’ve worked with our coach or teacher. We listened and did it when we were told to practice.  Our Brainsters notice that they’ve move from the paved road onto a trunk highway.  The lighting is better, going is faster, and we feel like we are on our way.  We still have to watch ourselves, but we can see that this has some real possibilities.  We’re excited.  We get the feeling that we could actually be good at this.  That encourages us, and practice becomes habit.

Unconscious Competence

Practice is the key to our new endeavor.  When I was back there, longing to get a driver’s license so I could break loose and be really, really cool (don’t know quite what happened there), I would drive every chance I got. And it was cool when someone was there to say, whoa, you need to do such and such. You stuck with the skill you were trying to learn and you could feel it “click” in.  Now you could do it in your sleep. It’s effortless and second nature.  Sometimes you look back and think, “did I really do that?”  We have reached the level of unconscious competence.

Team Neuron now finds itself on a turnpike.  The road is smooth and open from the brain to the limbs that do the work, and the brightness is provided by those myelin lights.

Crossroads

At this point, we find ourselves at a crossroad. But that’s for another day.

The discovery of myelin ALMOST makes the old saw “You can do anything you want to do” true. Almost.

What is true is that if you are physically able to do something, and you are willing to put in the time and effort and practice, you can become better at it.  As a golfer, you may not become Tiger Woods, but your only competition is yourself, and you will continue to beat that person as time goes on.  Who knows, if you have the basics to begin with, maybe you will be a Tiger.