Why you think you’re getting worse

Do you ever work really hard and feel like you got nothing out of it? Or, even more to the point, ever work a long time on developing a skill, and have the feeling that you’re getting worse instead of better? Chances are, no matter what you’re into, you’ve experienced this: in sports, in academics, in music, in chess, and, certainly, in markets and trading. This feeling can be frustrating, and is one of the reasons why many learners quit before achieving mastery, but there’s a good reason for it.

Developing skills

Skill developing over time

Take a look at the chart above, which shows a learner’s skill in a task (vertical axis) as a function of time spent learning (horizontal axis). I’ve divided her learning into three broad categories of beginner, serious student, and mastery. A few points to think about:

  • From the very beginning, a new learner picks up a lot of new skills quickly. This is the “honeymoon” period. It’s real and it’s important motivation—you can go from knowing nothing to having some legitimate skills in just a few days or weeks in pretty much any field. However, the beginner’s learning soon slows down to a more gradual growth.
  • At the intermediate stage, progress is usually a series of long plateaus followed by sudden jumps. We very rarely increase skills in any field in a predictable line or curve, and sometimes we might even experience dramatic setbacks. For the intermediate learner, time spent working is important, but we might not see the payoff for a very long time.
  • For someone approaching mastery, progress comes in probably more predictable, but smaller jumps. As we climb higher, it’s harder to go ever higher in the rarefied air. Learning and progress slow down, but we have a significant body of skill and knowledge behind us.

So this applies to actual skill: how good you are at catching the ball and getting to where you need to be on the field, how good you are at understanding patterns and potential on the board, how good you are at playing the right notes at the right time. Though the chart above is just one possible path, the concepts probably apply to a wide range of fields. But wait, there’s more…

Knowing what good is

Knowledge and perception of skill, over time

This chart shows something entirely different: your understanding and perception of skill in a field. For instance, the beginning musician is likely to be dazzled by anyone who can play a lot of notes fast. He doesn’t understand subtlety or style, and probably can’t even tell the difference between something played well or not so well. As our learner digs deeper, he starts to get some wisdom. He starts to understand what good (in his field) really is, and begins to understand the difference between really good and great.

  • The beginner probably doesn’t know much and doesn’t know he doesn’t know much. When I see someone swing a golf club, I just see someone swing a golf club. I don’t understand angles, grip, body position, addressing the ball, how to connect all parts of the body to a swing—but if I spent many hours learning to swing a golf club, I’d start to see it. The beginner’s understanding probably grows slowly at first, but this soon speeds up.
  • The intermediate student likely develops this knowledge at a faster and faster rate. Spurred by her own learning, working with a teacher or mentor, and watching/listening to peak performers in her field, she starts to get a very good idea of what is possible.
  • For the master, we continue to refine this discernment, but it grows slower and slower as we near the peak. A master’s understanding in a field can look superhuman to the layperson.

So this is our understanding of skill, which is something different from skill itself. What happens if we consider both of these curves together on the same chart?

Perception of our own skill

Here’s where things get interesting. In the chart above, I’ve put both of our lines, but I’ve also highlighted the difference between them. This is important: your understanding of your own skill (self-skill) depends on your general perception of skill in the field! For the beginner, who we just said knows very little, his own early skill seems very impressive indeed. Very often the “honeymoon” period in which he gains some new skills happens before he really understands very much. Realistically, he doesn’t have great skills, but he also doesn’t know enough to know this!

In the intermediate stages, which is where the foundation of mastery lies, things get a lot messier and a lot more complicated. Skill development often plateaus while discernment does not. If this is hard to understand, imagine that you are practicing, but are stuck in a long plateau stage in which your skills don’t really grow. (Remember, this is normal for most fields.) However, what if you’re continuing to develop more discernment and refining your perception during this period? You will very likely have the sense that you are actually getting worse, because your impression of self-skill is based on this difference. (Heaven forbid we have an actual minor setback in skill in this emotionally-charged environment—this can feel like the end of the world!)

For the master, things start to get more realistic as perception and skills come into alignment, but this is many years down the road in most fields, if not decades.

What to do with this?

This is an idea I’ve been trying to articulate for a long time. You may disagree with the specifics of the charts above, but I do think the concept is sound: we often increase our understanding and perception of skill in a task faster than our own skill can develop. I can’t put it more simply than this: this feels bad. Really bad. This is one reason why many people quit.

Forewarned is forearmed. If you know that this will likely happen, that you will hit plateaus and they’ll feel worse than they are, that you may feel stuck at a level for months (or even years), you’ll be prepared for it. You’ll understand that it is a normal part of skill development, and, most important, you will not quit. The path to mastery is difficult at best, but our perception of our own skill can shape the emotional context and lead to our eventual success or failure.

AdamHGrimes

Adam Grimes has over two decades of experience in the industry as a trader, analyst and system developer. The author of a best-selling trading book, he has traded for his own account, for a top prop firm, and spent several years at the New York Mercantile Exchange. He focuses on the intersection of quantitative analysis and discretionary trading, and has a talent for teaching and helping traders find their own way in the market.

This Post Has 10 Comments

  1. edelweiss

    Just love your writing!

  2. Mick Prater

    I am going through this very thing as I type. As a matter of fact, I feel like I am in permanent serious student mode. A few years ago, I felt like I was such a better trader, but it was most likely due to the overall market environment. After reading your post, I decided to go back and read my trade notes/journal. I can not believe I even attempted to risk real money trading the way I did and I consider my self lucky to still be in the game. Reviewing my trading plan now and comparing it to the old is encouraging to say the least. Thanks.

  3. A_Joe

    So True; Our Perceptions shape our Reality …. This is an Ideal Mental Model (Map) to be aware of & Guided by …….
    Realistic Expectations is a basic Yardstick to defining Success & continued motivation …
    Thank you very much for the Share …. 🙂

  4. Al3cs

    I discovered your whole work (book, blog, course, podcast) only last week and I’m enjoing so much what you did and what you’re doing. You just perfectly described the point where I am through my journey as a trader who’s trying to develope his skills in a rollercoaster of emotions and results. Thank you Adam, you’re helping me to see things in the right perspective.

  5. Josh

    Thank you Adam. Very rarely does one really understand that their own discernment changes, and that they judge themselves differently later in skill development without really acknowledging this. A few more dots were connected today…

  6. Josh

    Thinking about this from a more practical bent, how can we allow for improvements in both discernment and skill when measuring ourselves? Subjective measurements (“Fair”, “Poor”, “Excellent”) don’t mean the same thing a couple of years into skill development. How can we improve objective measures of our progress, and perhaps the subjective ones? Many “Excellent” trades I took a couple of years ago now I would rate as “Fair” so it seems that a subjective “feel” measure is almost meaningless?

  7. Peter Lawless

    I so agree Adam.. I liken Trading to my love of Golf.. I’ve got myself down to 6..a level most golfers envy, yet on Saturday I was playing with two 4 handicappers.. I felt I was crap!?

    So as an improving 18 handicap trader I understand not only how far I have to go, but also the pleasure I’m having with this wonderful journey that has no destination or endpoint.. Just a series of small probabilistic goals

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