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The Mental Benefits of Being Terrible at Something

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Re: The Mental Benefits of Being Terrible at Something

#31

Post by pmg102 »

silvestrov wrote: post #22
jfoutz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try cooking. The skill cap is high, it doesn't take much to make things OK, and you gotta eat. it has helped me a lot. Plenty of times I don't want to do it, but it's hard to put off for long. You can screw up a lot, and the results are still edible. Every damn meal I make has problems. Usually it's pretty good, but there are things I can do better with the output and the process. No matter the outcome, I feel better…

Cooking is one thing I'm terrible at: there is no feedback loop at all. No matter how much time I spend on 'experimenting', I don't get any better. Many people simple cannot fathom this. They deny the existing of any such possibility.

Absolutely the same. Some people just naturally improve when iterating on something (for me, coding is this way) while other just stay at "incompetent" forever - for me, most other activities such as DIY, playing guitar, cooking, and so on.

I always fail to remember this when getting frustrated at programmers who don't seem to improve

Re: The Mental Benefits of Being Terrible at Something

#32

Post by medstrom »

username90 wrote: post #26
brailsafe wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the opposite problem. As soon as I become remotely competent at something, I have a hard time bringing myself to do it.

You can fix that by raising the bar for which you feel you are "remotely competent". If you consider anyone below world class to not be remotely competent then you'll be world class before you give up.

Alternatively, keep piling on new ways of doing something, like raising the difficulty slider in a video game to keep it challenging.

Re: The Mental Benefits of Being Terrible at Something

#33

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

I really enjoyed this article. It reflects my experience.

I used to have a teacher that would say “Any day I don’t learn anything new, is a day that I died.”

I’ve always been good at picking up new stuff, and understanding difficult concepts, but these days, I have made a conscious decision to do one thing, and do it as well as possible. I’m probably at 90%. I’m fully aware that I’ll never be 100%.

That makes it fun. I like challenges.

Re: The Mental Benefits of Being Terrible at Something

#34

Post by username90 »

jpraamstra wrote: post #30
username90 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you have a good sense of how things should taste and intuition for how what you put in affected it.

Not necessarily true. Taste is super subjective, only you can decide whether you think something tastes good. And of course, it takes a long time to taste something and realize exactly what it misses or what causes it to taste good, but as long as you are able to test out different recipes you'll eventually end up with quite a few dishes that taste great.

The point was plateauing, not that what you make doesn't taste great to you. Making stuff that tastes great to an average person isn't hard, you'll reach there really quickly, it is improving after that point that is hard.

Re: The Mental Benefits of Being Terrible at Something

#35

Post by taneq »

silvestrov wrote: post #22
jfoutz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try cooking. The skill cap is high, it doesn't take much to make things OK, and you gotta eat. it has helped me a lot. Plenty of times I don't want to do it, but it's hard to put off for long. You can screw up a lot, and the results are still edible. Every damn meal I make has problems. Usually it's pretty good, but there are things I can do better with the output and the process. No matter the outcome, I feel better…

Cooking is one thing I'm terrible at: there is no feedback loop at all. No matter how much time I spend on 'experimenting', I don't get any better. Many people simple cannot fathom this. They deny the existing of any such possibility.

Eat the food you cook?

Re: The Mental Benefits of Being Terrible at Something

#36

Post by gadders »

username90 wrote: post #25
pjerem wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tasting what you cook while you cook is an incr/edible/ feedback loop

Only if you have a good sense of how things should taste and intuition for how what you put in affected it.

Yes, my wife can do this. I think most people could learn the technical skills, but my wife can taste something and decide on exactly the right thing to add.

Re: The Mental Benefits of Being Terrible at Something

#37

Post by xavriley »

silvestrov wrote: post #22
jfoutz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try cooking. The skill cap is high, it doesn't take much to make things OK, and you gotta eat. it has helped me a lot. Plenty of times I don't want to do it, but it's hard to put off for long. You can screw up a lot, and the results are still edible. Every damn meal I make has problems. Usually it's pretty good, but there are things I can do better with the output and the process. No matter the outcome, I feel better…

Cooking is one thing I'm terrible at: there is no feedback loop at all. No matter how much time I spend on 'experimenting', I don't get any better. Many people simple cannot fathom this. They deny the existing of any such possibility.

I found my cooking improved massively when I focussed on more scientific methods. For me personally The Food Lab and Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat were both great. Reducing the variables to a couple of axes made it much easier to decide what to add or change to get a result. For example if a sauce tastes too greasy, add the appropriate acid to lighten things up

Re: The Mental Benefits of Being Terrible at Something

#38

Post by watwut »

pmg102 wrote: post #31
silvestrov wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cooking is one thing I'm terrible at: there is no feedback loop at all. No matter how much time I spend on 'experimenting', I don't get any better. Many people simple cannot fathom this. They deny the existing of any such possibility.

Absolutely the same. Some people just naturally improve when iterating on something (for me, coding is this way) while other just stay at "incompetent" forever - for me, most other activities such as DIY, playing guitar, cooking, and so on. I always fail to remember this when getting frustrated at programmers who don't seem to improve

Because all of those require level of knowledge that is hard to acquire without external resources. You wont get better just iterating.

Re: The Mental Benefits of Being Terrible at Something

#39

Post by wildmanx »

username90 wrote: post #25
pjerem wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tasting what you cook while you cook is an incr/edible/ feedback loop

Only if you have a good sense of how things should taste and intuition for how what you put in affected it.

And how it should taste at this stage of the process. It needs experience to try some dough and extrapolate from it how the cake/bread/... will taste after baking it. Same with many sauces, for example. Things change when mixed with pasta, potatoes, veggies, meat. A sauce is much stronger without them. If you taste it and are inexperienced you may think "just right" and the dish will end up terribly bland.

Re: The Mental Benefits of Being Terrible at Something

#40

Post by jmnicolas »

silvestrov wrote: post #22
jfoutz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try cooking. The skill cap is high, it doesn't take much to make things OK, and you gotta eat. it has helped me a lot. Plenty of times I don't want to do it, but it's hard to put off for long. You can screw up a lot, and the results are still edible. Every damn meal I make has problems. Usually it's pretty good, but there are things I can do better with the output and the process. No matter the outcome, I feel better…

Cooking is one thing I'm terrible at: there is no feedback loop at all. No matter how much time I spend on 'experimenting', I don't get any better. Many people simple cannot fathom this. They deny the existing of any such possibility.

> Many people simple cannot fathom this. They deny the existing of any such possibility.

Frankly I never thought about it before since I self learned cooking quite easily. Maybe it's my French genetics? ;)

I thought cooking was easy, pastry on another hand requires much more dedication and precision, I would say it's the last 20% of cooking.

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