Build the emotional and meaning side of a skill, not only the action
Pay attention to what you feel and what the skill means to you, because both are part of the skill you are building.
Why it works
Lectica states that “skills incorporate emotions, motivation, meaning, and action” (Mascolo & Fischer, 2010, p. 5). If that holds, a skill that feels threatening or pointless is missing one of its parts, and drilling the action alone leaves that part unbuilt. That step from the statement to the practice is this page’s inference. Naming the feeling and the purpose gives the practice something to attach to.
How to do it
- Pick a skill you are currently practising.
- Write down what you feel when you try it.
- Write in one sentence what it is for in your own life.
- Practise the action while keeping that sentence in view.
Evidence
Lectica states that skills incorporate emotions, motivation, meaning, and action, citing Mascolo and Fischer (2010, p. 5). I did not read that work, so the practice is this page’s inference and not a tested intervention. (mechanistic)
Whether emotion belongs inside the skill itself or sits beside it is a framing choice this page did not test.
Sources
Common mistake
Drilling the motion of a skill while ignoring the dread or indifference around it, then wondering why it does not hold under real stakes.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for Dynamic Skill Theory: Development Built Context by Context
- Name the context a skill belongs to
Write down the situation in which a skill works, because the skill is tied to that situation.
- Compare what you do with help and what you do alone
Find the level you reach with good support and the level you reach without it, then work in the gap between them.
- Practise a skill in the real situations you will meet
Practise a skill in the kinds of situations you will actually meet, not only the one where you first learned it.
- Let different skills sit at different levels at once
Accept that one part of you can be advanced while another is still forming, and work on each one separately.
- Expect a skill to slip under stress and plan for it
Expect that a skill may drop under pressure, and plan the support for that moment.
- Ask what support the situation is giving you right now
Before judging your performance, name the people, tools, and cues the situation is supplying.
Related concepts
- Zone of Proximal Development: Learning at Your Real Edge
Targeting the gap between what you can do alone and what you can do with guidance
- Lines of Development: Why People Grow Unevenly
Why the same person can be mature in one part of life and young in another, and how to work with it
- Vertical Development Practices: How Adults Grow, Not Just Add Skills
Heat, colliding perspectives, and sense-making — and what the research can and cannot promise
- Scaffolding: The Art of Temporary Learning Support
How temporary support structures accelerate development and when to remove them
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