Why Some People Improve and Others Don’t is Because of 1 Mental Skill
The reason why some people improve, and others don’t comes down to one mental skill above all others. The name of this mental skill is inhibitory control.
Inhibitory control is a fancy word that describes one’s ability to keep themselves from choosing their default behavior when a better behavior is available. To improve, you must change your behavior. So, to ask why you aren’t improving is to ask why your behaviors aren’t facilitating the process of improvement. Furthermore, in order for your behaviors to facilitate the process of improvement, you must learn to question your instincts.
To put it differently, people who improve learn how to choose better, non-instinctive behaviors over less effective instinctive behaviors.
There is always a temptation to select the instinctive, obvious behavior. Especially when you have done something a certain way multiple times in the past. Therefore, learning how to exhibit inhibitory control is a skill not a talent. In other words, no one is born with a talent that makes them automatically good at inhibitory control. It’s something you must develop through practice.
Practice the Process of Improvement by Practicing Inhibitory Control
To practice this skill, I suggest using the game of chess. Most people learn how to play chess by learning the obvious standard moves vs. the non-obvious winning moves. For example:
- Protecting the queen. vs. sacrificing the queen (or other minor pieces).
- Putting your opponent in check vs. ignoring the check to prevent or win with a multi-step checkmate.
- Memorizing openings vs. identifying opening traps / blunders.
- Reacting to pieces moving forward vs. pieces moving other directions.
The only way to improve at chess is to use inhibitory control when your instincts tempt you to take the obvious standard move. This takes a lot of practice, and research suggest this practice will strengthen your ability to exhibit inhibitory control beyond chess.
So, whether it’s through chess or some other means, practicing the mental skill of inhibitory control is why some people improve and others don’t.