Everyone loves an expert these days. Whether it’s a professional sportsman breaking a record or a virologist finding a new vaccine. But the desire for absolute mastery brings with it a personal cost. We feel it’s not enough to run because we enjoy running, but that we must complete a marathon, not enough to swim but that we must cross the channel. Life seems like a game where success is a matter of ultra-endurance, whether in our work or our play. Yet there is compelling evidence that for both body and brain it’s better to cross-train than overtrain.
In my last post I talked about creative habits, and habits are important because it’s the little things we do every single day – whether good or bad – that have so much ability to influence our long-term outcomes. Get into the habit of cleaning your teeth twice a day and you won’t notice anything much, but over the course of a lifetime you’ll have great teeth. Get into a snacking habit, or a glass of wine every night, and soon the calories compound.
When it comes to keeping our brains healthy, habits are both a blessing and a curse. By doing something habitually – maybe your commute to work – you eventually find yourself not consciously thinking about it. Repetition creates a neural short-cut that turns out to be a real energy saver. Yet habit is a great deadener, to steal a phrase from Beckett. Living your life on autopilot can shrink your brain. Trying new things on the other hand, forces our brain to create new neural pathways and stay fit and healthy. Make your creative habits as diverse as possible. Better still, make it a habit to try new things.
All the more reason we should aim to be lifelong learners, and the older we get, the more proactive we need to be about learning new skills. Neurologically speaking, we are better doing many things in a somewhat amateurish fashion, than repeating a few skills in a virtuoso fashion. Becoming brilliant at something might bring us more of a sense of achievement, but the extra effort required to get there is a matter of diminishing returns. The inventor Nathan Myhrvold (whom Bill Gates once described as the smartest man he knew) said, ‘the world rewards specialization, but specialization comes as a cost. You learn more and more about less and less until you know everything about nothing.’
Tempting as it is to harness specialisms within teams, there are benefits to your employees working across wider areas. Not only could it prove beneficial for their personal growth but it could bring valuable connections and insights into your business.
And at home, remember that it’s fine to have hobbies you’re not much good at. That’s the whole point of a hobby. Paint if you enjoy painting, sing if you enjoy singing. Indulge yourself in the joy of being a complete and utter amateur.