Quotes About Improvement

During this time I quit attending classes at the university, and my grades rose from four Fs to three Bs and an A.

ameliorative. He climbed

She is practicing, because she knows that there is no difference between practice and art. The practice is the art.

The sweet spot: that productive, uncomfortable terrain located just beyond our current abilities, where our reach exceeds our grasp. Deep practice is not simply about struggling; it's about seeking a particular struggle, which involves a cycle of distinct actions.

repetition. "Don't look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That's the only way it happens—and when it happens, it lasts," he wrote in The Wisdom of Wooden.

Deep practice is built on a paradox: struggling in certain targeted ways—operating at the edges of your ability, where you make mistakes—makes you smarter. Or to put it a slightly different way, experiences where you're forced to slow down, make errors, and correct them—as you would if you were walking up an ice-covered hill, slipping and stumbling as you go—end up making you swift and graceful without your realizing it.

Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they'll find a way to screw it up. Give a mediocre idea to a good team, and they'll find a way to make it better. The goal needs to be to get the team right, get them moving in the right direction, and get them to see where they are making mistakes and where they are succeeding.

Try again. Fail again. Fail better. —Samuel Beckett

Deep practice feels a bit like exploring a dark and unfamiliar room. You start slowly, you bump into furniture, stop, think, and start again. Slowly, and a little painfully, you explore the space over and over, attending to errors, extending your reach into the room a bit farther each time, building a mental map until you can move through it quickly and intuitively.

ignore the bad habit and put your energy toward building a new habit that will override the old one.

It demoralizes people just to hear that they are doing "something" wrong without knowing what the specifics are so they can change.

An artful critique focuses on what a person has done and can do rather than reading a mark of character into a job poorly done. As Larson observes, "A character attack—calling someone stupid or incompetent—misses the point. You immediately put him on the defensive, so that he's no longer receptive to what you have to tell him about how to do things better.

Smart practice always includes a feedback loop that lets you recognize errors and correct them - which is why dancers use mirrors. Ideally that feedback comes from someone with an expert eye - and so every world-class sports champion has a coach. If you practice without such feedback, you don't get to the top ranks.

Smart practice always includes a feedback loop that lets you recognize errors and correct them - which is why dancers use mirrors. Ideally that feedback comes from someone with an expert eye - and so every world-class sports champion has a coach. If you practice without such feedback, you don't get to the top ranks. The feedback matters and the concentration does, too - not just the hours.

Posner's group proposes that attention training should be part of the education of every child, giving a boost in learning across the board.

apunta: «Los ataques al carácter de alguien (llamarlo estúpido o incompetente) no sirven para nada. El otro se pone de inmediato a la defensiva y deja de ser receptivo a las recomendaciones que tenemos que hacerle para que mejore.»

A surprise: mindfulness also improved working memory—the holding in mind of information so it can transfer into long-term memory. Attention is crucial for working memory; if we aren't paying attention, those digits won't register in the first place.

In a company everyone is part of the system, and so feedback is the lifeblood of the organization, the exchange of information that lets people know if the job they are doing is going well or needs to be fine-tuned, upgraded, or redirected entirely. Without feedback people are in the dark; they have no idea how they stand with their boss, with their peers, or in terms of what is expected of them, and any problems will only get worse as time passes.

A character attack—calling someone stupid or incompetent misses the point. You immediately put him on the defensive, so that he's no longer receptive to what you have to tell him about how to do things better.

La transición no provendrá de los decretos gubernamentales si no de las mejoras que el individuo intente lograr y que otros apoyen espontáneamente. - Dalai Lama

People can have two different mindsets, she says. Those with a "fixed mindset" believe that their talents and abilities are carved in stone. Those with a "growth mindset" believe that their talents and abilities can be developed. Fixed mindsets see every encounter as a test of their worthiness. Growth mindsets see the same encounters as opportunities to improve.

This is what it means to serve: improving another's life and, in turn, improving the world.

acquisition of skills requires a regular environment, an adequate opportunity to practice, and rapid and unequivocal feedback about the correctness of thoughts and actions.

You can't put up a building on a site until you destroy the old one, and the old Charlie can't be destroyed.