“Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours” – Richard Bach
I didn’t realize until I moved into college that I was not good with names. Meeting so many people felt like a burden and I couldn’t keep up. I wouldn’t even bother trying since I felt like I was going to ask again anyways. But I came upon this thought experiment: If you were told you’d receive a million dollars for remembering the name of the next person you meet, would you remember it [1]? Well in that case, of course I would. But if you’re capable of doing that, are you really not good with names?
What We Write
Josh Waitzkin comments on an approach to learning called the entity method [2]. Here, we consider our skills fixed as if they take a form of their own. “Math is just natural to me.” We can believe we are just talented in some things and take it from there. But the statement also goes the other way. “English is just not my thing”. This was essentially what I was saying about my experience with names.
Waitzkin competed as a young kid in international chess tournaments. And he noticed that people around him who approached learning this way found themselves stuck. No matter what, there’s always a limit to the entity method. If you believe you can’t do it, you won’t even try. But even if you believe you are natural at something, you will face challenges which will force you to be at your limit. “What is compelling about this is that the results have nothing to do with intelligence level. Very smart kids with entity theories tend to be far more brittle when challenged” [2]. Waitzkin noticed at these moments people would admit defeat even when they are capable of pushing through.
We are the authors of our own stories. But sometimes we become trapped in our own writing. As simple as it was, I told myself the story that I was not capable of remembering names. And I came to believe in that story. I no longer attempted change because I assumed I was at my limit.
Surprisingly, I never considered my memory to be poor. In fact, competing in many academic competitions that required learning often trivial facts, I thought my memory was strong. But I attributed it to a natural talent. I attempted new methods on improving it, but assumed it was possible because of something inherent. So when I faced the challenge of names, I folded and thought I had reached my limit. But how does one break past that barrier?
Getting Out of the Pages
Waitzkin also found another method of learning known as the incremental method. Here students never thought of their skills as fixed, but in a constant progression. When they faced challenges, they used the opportunity to improve their skills. They viewed mastery as always related to work and not talent. This meant there was no perceived limit to their capabilities. Only their will to keep trying.
The thought experiment showed me that I was only being held back by myself. I learned new memory techniques such as story creation which drastically improved my recall. Suddenly I would meet someone for 30 seconds and remember their name two weeks later. And any time I wasn’t able to remember a name, I saw an opportunity to improve my learning. Suddenly I was doing something which I previously believed myself incapable of.
Our primary obstacle is often our own mind. There is no reason to place limits on what you’re capable of, both physically and mentally. At the age of eight, Kevin Horsely was told by a psychologist that he had brain damage. He would always have a poor memory with little concentration. But now Horsely is a grandmaster of memory, one of the few in the world, having won multiple international memory competitions [1]. He decided that he could achieve more than what he and others believed. Imagine if he had believed the story he was given.
I like to think of a more general thought experiment David Goggins proposes. Goggins was originally overweight and a pest exterminator, but pushed through to now be considered the world’s toughest man. He imagines that when he dies, he’ll go up to heaven and meet God. There he’ll see on a board the maximum potential of his life. All his achievements and world records in physical challenges and ultramarathons. But if he had never made that change from his original life, he would look at that board and just see all the accomplishments as missed opportunities. In that world, it would’ve been the life he missed out on. Now he wants to live a life where he breaks even his maximum potential [3]. And he believes the only thing that could hold him back is his mind.
How is your current story holding you back from what you’re capable of?
[1] Unlimited Memory – Kevin Horsley
[2] The Art of Learning – Josh Waitzkin
[3] David Goggins on Impact Theory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIM7E8e9JKY
