51¶3 Work on technique, seek constant critical feedback, and shore up weaknesses. How? When recording a song, re-record every track and compare the tracks and improve, ask why the track isn't perfect five times, post your songs and ask what you should change. Every time you work on a song, post it. Treat every moment like school: you're either learning or applying what you've learned.
53 Foster an obsessive desire to improve.
58 Work on what makes you happy that requires a little more skill than you have when you start. Between easy and possible is a pursuit. Stay in pursuit.
74 Fail better. Fail usefully.
80 Divide a task into its smallest possible chunks, then speed up and slow down the task. Play with time.
80 Imitate someone talented at what you're trying to do.
83 Practice in slow motion. Small parts in slow motion.
85¶3 Coach yourself. Know what you're trying to learn by what you're doing, and do it by dividing it into small parts and taking it slow.
85¶2 Record yourself performing the task in slow motion so you can check your performance.
86 Practice based on a strategy and fix mistakes based on a strategy. Start everything with a strategy. Fix the strategy. You don't succeed or fail. The strategy succeeds or fails, so fix it. After all, you're not fixing you, you're fixing the strategy, because you're not broken, the strategy is.
94 Stay willing to learn by enjoying making mistakes. Make the mistakes small enough to enjoy them.
106 I want X later, so I better do Y like crazy right now.
117 Think how lucky you are to get to learn what you can learn.
127 Surround yourself with cues to get busy.
130 Define the exclusive club you want to join, and work toward becoming one of those guys.
171 Practice until you think of it as doing one thing, and chunk down mistakes into discrete parts you can do correctly.
175 Teach how to love the act of learning what you're teaching. Teach how to love the learning process.
188 Respond to success with "Good. Okay, now do X."
191 The day is a gift. What are you going to do with it?
195 Create the environment the learner needs to discover the solution, either by telling them (if there's one way to do it right) or by creating an environment that gives immediate feedback (if there's multiple ways to do it right.) Tell them the learning that applies to everyone with teaching, create the environment for the learning that's different for everyone with your coaching.
211 When something doesn't go the way you want, ask "why?" five times.
212 You can tolerate anxiety if you define the moment of anxiety by why you're tolerating the anxiety, e.g., instead of "I'm feeling anxiety," "I'm preparing for an exam," or "I'm learning public speaking," etc.
214 Maybe PTSD is nature's Prolonged Exposure Therapy: reliving a memory to rob it of its power.
217 The difference between a step and a stumbling block is size: the trick is to make the steps low enough so you can take them, but high enough so you can feel yourself moving up.
217 Notice how people challenge themselves independently and praise them for their efforts.