Day 25 (twenty-five) of 365 days
In making our decisions, one key question we all face is when and to what degree we should focus on our passions, the things we like, and when to what degree on our masteries, the things we’ve been good at so far in life.
You want to figure out your existing cognitive strengths and skills whether you’re presently passionate about them or not, then build your first masteries around those strengths. Once you’ve had success with those, you start building proficiency and can use that proficiency to make little bets on things that may get you closer to your true passions which might not be clear at first.
For all but few, the things you find emotionally interesting in life are very likely to change as you become expert in something and some of your interests will deepen into passions and others fade away. If our passions don’t lead to masteries that provide social virtue, things that help others, they won’t make us happy. When we focus on skill-building, it is also important to be strategic.
Transitions is something we all make in our lives, in various domains, or fail to make If we remain overly enamored with learning and passions and not enough with mastery, or learning in order to apply it to real problems. Deliberate intense practice with quick expert feedback is the fastest way to climb the hierarchy of skills. The mastery challenge is for professionals who want to learn, grow and perform at their best. It’s designed for people want to raise their game and are willing to invest in themselves to get and stay at the leading page. While no one can guarantee success, it’s always helpful to learn from those who have gone before us and share what we’ve learned.
Once you’re a master of something, paid a reasonable wage at what you do, you’ll be in the best place, financially and experientially, to ask which of your passions are still not being met by your current state, and then figuring out how to meet those passions by paying for experiences, picking up hobbies, gaining mastery in a new skill. Along the way, you will need to continually resist the trap of being more of the kind of work you don’t want and instead trade in some of your career proficiency for more freedom to do the kind of work you think you will love, even when it pay less.
After some success with that, you can then begin to ask what your life mission, your greatest passion and legacy might be. That might be the time to make some bold moves, but only once you’ve got a lot of proficiency, fallbacks and a safety net in case your exciting venture doesn’t work out.
