Tag: Competence

On Persisting

Originally published on LinkedIn.

Last week, I reflected on competence, confidence, and parenting. Turns out Eleanor Roosevelt had a more inspiring insight:

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along. … You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
(~You Learn By Living)

In other words, the horrors persist; but so do I.

h/t: James Clear

Micro-lesson from reflecting on parenting and life

Originally published on LinkedIn.

You learn to handle things by handling things. Your kids learn to handle things by watching you handle things.

You might be scared or lack confidence, but life is a game of gaining confidence through incrementally building competence, one challenge at a time. Always be mindful how others, especially little eyes, see how you comport yourself through challenge. In adults, it affects trust; in children, it shapes who they will be.

h/t Ryan Holiday

900 Days of Deutsch

This weekend, I hit a new milestone – 900 consecutive days of practicing German using Duolingo.

Upon sharing the news with a friend, he asked how fluent I feel. Truthfully, I still feel like I’m pattern-matching. I’m fairly decent at decoding messages and generating approximately correct statements, but I don’t feel that I could carry on a conversation.

That’s not to say there is no value in what I’ve invested so much time in. Last year, my wife and I spent a few days visiting her family in Germany, and I knew enough from practicing on Duolingo to utter a few sentences and follow along on some simple conversations. However, it was a valuable lesson that just because I unlock levels, it doesn’t mean I’m gaining competence. Sometimes, what you think you are learning doesn’t match what you are actually practicing. It’s good to keep this distinction in mind.

Stay Awesome

Ryan