Progressology

The Study and Psychology of Progress

Decompose Competences.

Break down large goals - bodies of knowledge, complex physical skills, multiple body part movements or sequences and skills that span multiple areas into smaller sub competences. These sub competences need not be achievable by you immediately.

Convert Difficult Competences into Easier and Simpler Competences, Convert Current Competences into More Difficult Ones

Take your ideal competences and create easier, achievable versions of them. Take your current competences and create slightly more difficult versions of them that you can see will be achievable with practice. Continue to do this until you have a nice library of these competences. You can also research if anyone has already created some for you to use.

Build Progressions

A progression is a string of progressively more difficult competences. If you now place the competences you have created in a series with your current competencies at the bottom to your ideal ones at the top, and intermediate competences in between, you have created a personalised development or learning progression.

Progression Viability

Not all steps which you chose in the last step may be possible. Alternative progressions could be more effective and efficient.

Identify Potential Sticking Points and Interferiors

For every behaviour we attempt to learn and acquire we already have a wealth of other behaviours which are similar. Some of these earlier acquired behaviour patterns and habits can interfere with the development of new behaviours. In the science of memory in cognitive psychology there is a concept called interference, in which earlier memories disrupt both the use of and the acquisition of new memories. The usual tragi-comical example is that of someone using the name of a past lover while in the clinches of a new one. When learning any behaviour or creating any new memory we are faced with the impact of these interferiors, as I have named them. In the example of learning to juggle three balls, which we covered earlier, prior habits learned while mastering two ball juggling interfere with the ability to learn to juggle three balls. The habit of passing one ball horizontally from hand to hand is an interferior. Keep this in mind as you move onto the next step, as it is crucial to its success.

Simplifying this Process

Of course, there are off the shelf competences and progressions. But you should treat these as suggestions or one size fits all types of approaches. You wouldn’t find a pair of trousers built for the average person to be the most comfortable or useful for you, at least not without alterations and it’s often the same for the advice given by experts and professionals. We are all biased by our own individual experiences of what is easy or difficult for ourselves.

If you’ve gone through the more difficult process above and built your own progression from scratch. You will have a much greater understanding of how to tweak off the shelf progressions and competences for your own use.

Use the Progression.

Progressions are built on the premise that practising preceding competences leads to the acquisition of more difficult or more complex competences. Use the progression to guide your practice, but, if you do not feel like you are making progress, practice other competences. We will deal in more detail with how to practice to move through progressions soon, as it isn’t as straightforward as just practising each one in succession if you wish to proceed through a progression efficiently and effectively.

Mountains, valleys or the long way around…

When learning a foreign language which has a written script different from English (my birth tongue), I always start with drilling the written symbols first. Later I can then constantly practise this skill when I begin learning grammar and vocabulary. I always consider that climbing this mountain of a sub-skill in learning a language in adulthood makes for easier and more effective language learning later. Some decide that the extra initial effort to learn the written form isn’t something they want then. Learning is individual and different, and what can be seen as a mountain to some isn’t perceived the same way by another. However, we can all make our learning more effective in the long term by surveying the learning journey ahead of us, and decide what is the best path.