"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor."  –Thoreau

Some of us are dabblers, some of us are obsessives, and some of us are hackers.

Which one are you?

They’re basically just different approaches many people take to learning. The dabbler loves when things are new. Just loves the shiny new object and everything about starting something. The obsessive is focused on getting results as fast as possible. The hacker gets good enough at something and is fine where she or he is.

Don’t really like any of the options? Is there a better way?

We probably all can recognize ourselves in a combination of these learning styles. And yes there is a problem with them all: we never get on the road to mastery with them. They aren’t the stuff of lifelong learning.

Let's get on the path of a master.

Certainly when we are patient and stick with our learning day in and day out, we are definitely more on the path. But with all of that said, many of us begin to experience change and then we hit the plateau. That long period of time where we’re sticking with it, pushing hard, staying strong…and nothing happens.

Or we begin to experience change and then we run into resistance.

AND we might begin to think this shiny new object or all this efforting isn’t worth it and we criticize ourselves for even trying. We even begin to use language which reveals our negative thinking and the stories we tell ourselves, and we think we’re “just being real” and give up.

How part of what’s going on when we regress or retract is about the body's response to stress. Change? Homeostasis is first to be understood. Then, you can be prepared to meet it and learn the long path toward deep mastery.