Learning, Self Evaluation, Growth and Improvement
Monday, September 26th, 2011 at
4:40 pm
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I have been an athlete now for 25 years. I have had my fair share of success and failure over the years. I’ve also had countless numbers of interactions with others trying to achieve athletic perfection. In my observation, there are three categories of people in regards to how they learn and the speed at which they improve. These categories are Fast Track Learners, Normal Joes, and an anomaly of people that Seem to Never Really Improve.
The Fast Track Learners are those extremely gifted individuals that learn and improve with seemingly minimal effort. For athletes that fit into this category, everything seems to come easily. They show major gains in all areas in a relatively short period of time. They also retain the knowledge they are exposed to somewhat easily. This can often be very frustrating for athletes not in this category. The problem that can arise for athletes in this category is that often they will reach a high level of competitiveness so quickly that improvement at this level is often perceived as slow. The result being a loss of interest and drive almost just as quickly as they rose to proficiency.
The second category is Normal Joes. Normal Joes are your average person off the street. They have no known innate natural talent and with time, hard work and discipline, they can reach high levels of success. For athletes in this category achieving success often takes a lot of time and effort. Nothing ever really comes easily and it is a constant struggle for them to acquire and retain knowledge. The downfall of people in this category is that they often look to people in the Fast Track category as a point of reference to gauge their own improvement and become frustrated and lose interest because they feel like they are not improving fast enough.
The last category is made up of those that Seem to Never Improve. People in this category are extremely varied. Some of them have natural talent, some don’t. They are of all body types, shapes, ages, races and gender etc. They are often very knowledgeable about what they are trying to learn but can never really seem to make their wealth of knowledge translate into success. It is not to say that they lack the ability to be successful but they are obviously lacking something.
The one thing that can take any person from any one of these groups and not only make them successful but make them great as well, is learning to self evaluate. A person can spend years practicing and acquiring knowledge but if they don’t look at themselves and try to actually understand the knowledge they are acquiring, breakdown what they are practicing and also be willing to admit to themselves what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong, they will never reach their full potential. It is my experience that a person’s ability to learn, grow and improve is directly correlated and caused by their ability to self evaluate. Anybody can be successful as long as they are willing to put self evaluation into practice.
It is those with enough humility to admit their own shortcomings that rise to become the elite; not because it was part of some master plan or because of superior genetics. Success boils down to one’s own willingness to commit to one’s goals. If you want something, go and get it. Be ready and willing to sacrifice, work hard, self evaluate and face lots of hardship and discomfort. Remember, nothing worth doing is ever going to be easy.
Henry Martinez
