DAY THREE – SETTLING IN
Easing into the new and unfamiliar is not flipping a switch from off to on or out to in. It is getting used to something gradually, a step at a time, little by little, not all at once like jumping into the deep end where we may be over our heads. Becoming comfortable with something new is a process over time and there is no magic formula or recipe for how much time it takes nor should take for a person to feel confident in doing something that may be new. Or if it’s not new and long forgotten, it may still take time to regain what was lost.
Learning is best done in stages and steps, starting from those that are easy and simple and then moving slowly, carefully, and deliberately to the more complex and challenging. Think of the things you learned as a child, especially walking and talking, and how those became part of you as you learned from others and tried them on your own. In a similar way, we expand our abilities in other areas by practicing new ways repeatedly. It’s why it’s called practice because we improve through repetition.
It was Malcolm Gladwell, journalist and author, who wrote about the 10,000-hour rule in his 2008 bestseller, “Outliers. The rule is simple: mastery comes after someone practices one skill — like playing the violin — for 10,000 hours. We are not suggesting this journey will require that many hours although we are not adverse to that either.
At a minimum, 365 two-minute, daily meditations would require only a little over 12 hours. This BOLD EXPERIMENT is an attempt at 30 days, a minimum amount of time. What happens as a result is up to each person.
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Comments (2)
Ah. Yes. Mastery… I don’t know how many repetitions it takes for someone to ‘master’ a given ‘thing’, but I am told that one result of Mastery is that the one thing which we Master becomes integral to our life… how exciting is that, eh?!
P.S. I wrote about ‘Mastery’ this morning too… go figure 🙂
It was Malcolm Gladwell in “Outliers” who wrote abut the 10,000 hours of practice for “mastery” regardless what endeavor. I have often rested with “jack of all trades, master of none” as a descriptor and have also used “master of the obvious” describing my own descriptions. I remember Master being used as a substitute for Mister and getting birthday cards addressed to Master GRG
After its replacement in common speech by Mister, Master was retained as a form of address only for boys who had not yet entered society. By the late 19th century, etiquette dictated that men be addressed as Mister, and boys as Master. Seems no longer the case…
I’m now thinking what is “integral” to my life? Will chew on that a little more, thank you/