In this lesson, I’ll discuss competence and skill levels.

Most people only have a binary judgment of a person’s skill level.

You are either good, or you’re not good.

Some people are more eloquent.

A person may be considered:

You can practice something once, fail, and say you have zero skill.

You also know that you try enough times, you know that you can learn.

If you’ve ever watched anime, played video games, played a sport, learned how to cook, ride a bike, draw, sing, playing the guitar, gotten a girlfriend, or applied yourself to learning any skill, you know what I’m talking about.

People get better as they try to learn a skill.

Learning a skill takes time and effort to practice.

99% of the failures will happen in the beginning.

If you want to learn how to cook, you’ll get many cuts and burns.

If you want to learn how to play a sport, you’ll stumble, get bruised, and laughed at.

If you want to learn how to ride a bike, you’ll fall off your bike and get scraped on the road.

If you want to learn how to play the guitar, your fingers are going to hurt, and your neighbors are going to complain.

If you want to learn a martial art, you will get punched in the face and kicked in the balls.

If you want to learn how to get a girlfriend, you will get embarrassed and rejected.

The pain is all part of the game.

Whatever game you decide to play, you will experience suffering.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is, if you keep going, you’ll slowly climb to different levels.

In a lot of skills, there are many levels.

Complex skills usually have at least 20 or 30 different skill levels.

More complicated skills have more levels.

But for illustration, I’m only showing you about ten.

Here are the skill levels to consider.

Can’t do it (0% mastery)

No matter how hard you try, you can’t do it.

Do it right once. (1%-4% mastery)

You tried so many times, and eventually, you can do it right once, but you haven’t tried enough times to know if you can do it again.

Do it right every now and then. (5-10% mastery)

You tried more times, and you’ve done it right more than once. You’re just not too confident, depending on this skill.

Do it right once in a while. (11-15% mastery)

Because of necessity, you’ve tried some more, and you were able to do it right once in a while. The failure rate is pretty high, so you avoid putting yourself on the spot.

Do it right if you try but not all the time. (20% mastery)

Since you learned how to do this skill, you’ve been put on the spot more times than you wanted to be. The failure rate is pretty high, but after a few attempts, you can do it right.

Do it right sometimes. (25%-30%)

Your success rate still isn’t high, and that’s okay. You’re just not as afraid as you were in the past stages. You know that if something doesn’t work out, you’ll try again, and it could work out.

Do it right half the time. (50%)

You have some successes and some failures. You know it’s normal. The failures no longer bother you as it did when you were new.

Do it right most of the time but still miss every now and then. (70-85% mastery)

You have more wins than losses. You may now consider yourself to be moderately good or average. You can accomplish tasks, and whenever you fail, you know that you just need to make a small adjustment, try again and succeed!!!

Do it right almost all the time. (85-95% mastery)

You are about as good as the high-level players. You have a high success rate and a low failure rate. You still fail, but nobody cares because you win more times than you lose.

Does it all the time (96% mastery)

Most top-level players have reached this point. The only difference between the best and the person in the 4th, 5th, and 6th place is approximately 0.04% mastery of a skill.

Does it until never gets it wrong (97-99%)

It takes a lot of time and practice, but this is what happens late in learning a skill. You can get to this point after spending a lot of time, making a lot of mistakes, and eventually mastering this skill.

Does it perfectly (100%)

If you start early, follow proper instructions, spend time and effort, you’ll reach this point. For most of us, we never reach this point.

And that’s okay.

We only need to win a few times to achieve our primary goals and succeed.

Activity:

How many attempts does it take to become really good at a skill?

How many failures do you need to face to become really good?

What is your current skill level?

Knowing the number of jumps you need to reach mastery will failing a few dozen times still bother you?

Recap

There are different stages of learning a skill.

It’s not limited to a yes or no answer.

You have to slowly climb your way up so you can learn, get better, and eventually, you can use that skill to achieve your goals.

In a lot of cases, all you need is patience.

Just keep going, keep trying.

I’ve done this for a lot of skills, and I know this works.

If you do become more patient with yourself and give yourself more chances, you’re going to do it too.

Easter Eggs

If you’ve ever played the first DoTA games, you’ll recognize these items and their chance to perform their unique ability.

Cranium Basher:

Buriza Do Kyanon:

Monkey King Bar:

I used to complain that the basher only had a 25% chance to take effect, but my friend told me to keep attacking, and after 3-4 times, the basher will stun the target. All I had to do was keep attacking.

Thank you, Karlo.

TRIVIA: This page has been edited 35 times.

Even at my current skill level, I still make mistakes.

Perfection is not a requirement to mastering a skill.

Kevin O