10,000 Resolutions

Resolutions, come to think of it, are rather silly.

Every January 1st, as is the custom for millions of Americans, we enter into a collective delusion to commit ourselves to vague truisms that we already know to be good for us.

• Read more.
• Eat healthy.
• Work out.
• Don’t procrastinate.
• Be a better person.

Well, duh.

This time around, I’m tired of setting myself up for failure.

This time around, I’m ditching resolutions for simple accounting.

Life is like World of Warcraft—It all comes down to grinding.

Among the books I’ve had the chance to finally enjoy over the holiday was Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers”. One of the most striking ideas in the book is “The 10,000 Hour Rule”. Simply stated, it takes about 10,000 hours for the human mind to fully assimilate a skill to the point of mastery.

It’s an incredibly empowering sentiment: provided that you meet some minimal intelligence or talent requirements (chances are, you’re fine), it’s conceivable that the old adage, “You can do anything you put your mind to”, will come to pass. Even if you don’t completely buy into this magical number, 10,000 hours is a long ass time; if not mastery then, hell, 10,000 hours certainly couldn’t hurt.

Rather be working for a paycheck, then waiting to win the lottery.

Consider this excerpt from the book Art & Fear (via Coding Horror):

The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”.

Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

For all that we stress about in our creative processes, it all boils down to the simple tautology—that the only way to get better at something is to do it. Yes, a lot of it’s going to suck. Yes, you’re going to hate when things don’t turn out right. Just learn to get over it. And for god’s sake, don’t get embarrassed about it. You’ve got 10,000 hours to get it right. Don’t worry about getting it wrong a couple times.

Underneath every brilliant work, there was a lot of sweat, love, and determination to get there. Figure out what you love, and start chipping away.

Happy New Year.