I really like her point about "learning disabilities." It is a really interesting way to look at it and a way I had never thought of before.
I think my favorite part is:
- Once you start to think of mistakes as deterministic rather than random, as caused by "bugs" (incorrect understanding or incorrect procedures) rather than random inaccuracy, a curious thing happens.
You stop thinking of people as "stupid."
Tags like "stupid," "bad at ____", "sloppy," and so on, are ways of saying "You're performing badly and I don't know why." Once you move it to "you're performing badly because you have the wrong fingerings," or "you're performing badly because you don't understand what a limit is," it's no longer a vague personal failing but a causal necessity. Anyone who never understood limits will flunk calculus. It's not you, it's the bug.
Addressing bugs is an effective way to get shit done. Also, when you realize that you have corrected for some bugs, you don't feel half as bad about what you currently cannot do. I'm saving this post. It's one of those conceptual seeds that I know will grow into something that affects my thinking in other areas.
For example, being in new environments when you're studying can help a lot with retention. As can associating facts with memories of some emotional charge (Play around and be happy while discussing a subject with a friend!). Spaced repetition can help offload the pain of cramming, too. The list goes on...
I have found that having a background as a musician changes the way you approach the world in a very valuable way. I used to be a musician in a very serious way (originally went to college for music) and it has absolutely colored my approach to writing. Music has taught me that if you want to get better at something, all you need to do is practice (mindfully). A lot of people get hung up on "I want to do x, but I'm not good at it" or "How do you get good at y?" The answer, to me, is almost always practice. I can't think of a single thing you will not get better at if you start doing it every day. Even when I was NOT putting my all into a practice session, I was improving. There are certain drills (for me as a flautist, scales, arpeggios, technical exercises) that just doing and attempting to do correctly - are bound to improve your performance. When you say you are just bad at something, you are making an excuse to not work hard at improving. "I am inherently bad at this, I will never be good at this, therefore there is no purpose to doing this." I think people tend to do this because they don't like doing things they are bad at. I, for instance, dislike Apples to Apples. I am a resoundingly mediocre player. I don't know if I've even played it once in the past year. But if I wanted to get better at it, that would be what I needed to do - play it. Often.