Introduction

Learning a new language, going to the gym, learning how to code, ... Have you ever tried to learn something new, start a new hobby or project and failed once the initial boost of excitement ran out? This couldn't be a more common scenario and fortunately it is something that doesn't have to happen merely as often as it does. With today's straight-forward 3-part framework, almost anything can be learned, started and eventually mastered.

This post covers...

1. 🎯 The general idea
2. 🏁 Part I: Get going
3. 🐲 Part II: Get good
4. 🤓 Part III: Get smart

The general idea

The core idea behind get going, get good and get smart is to separate the process of starting or learning something new into different phases with focusses on different aspects of the natural process of obtaining a new skill. And this is essentially all it is. It is an acknowledgement of the fact that learning something new means (1) sucking at that thing at first, (2) getting good over time and (3) only later down the line getting to the point where it becomes easy, natural and efficient to do something really well. The framework tries to guide through this process by giving a set of rules what to focus on in each of these three phases, so that we don't get distracted by the wrong things along this journey of obtaining a new skill.

Part I: Get going

The get going phase is also called the quantity phase. Especially at the beginning of doing something new it is tempting to let the obvious unimpressive results and lack of skill convince us to give up on trying to keep learning. The rule of the get going phase tries to eliminate this by demanding to only and purely focus on the quantity and consistency - doing or confronting ourselves regularly with the thing we want to learn. Perfectionism is therefore forbidden and we have the freedom to get in the required reps that give us momentum and help turn the learning process into a habit. However good or bad the results are in this phase, it is simply not important.

Part II: Get good

In the get good phase, the focus then shifts to quality. Now the perfectionism restriction is removed and you can dive deep into the thing you are trying to learn and start asking yourself questions like: How can I make this better? In this phase, the consistency is not the primary focus, so don't beat yourself up if it takes a couple of hits (depends on the type of skill, too).

Part III: Get smart

The final phase is the mastery phase, also know as the efficiency phase. Here, you try to combine the consistency from phase one with the quality from phase two. How can you optimize your processes, how can you stabilize your systems for continuing to evolve your skill further and how can you ensure the sustainability of continuing to evolve. While phase one and two should be tracked with clear and specific time frames in your calendar, phase three being the last one, it is an open-ended one.

Conclusion

Learning or starting something new isn't always easy. It is unsatisfying not being as good as the pros from the get go and having to first put in a lot of time before we start seeing decent results. But especially this beginning phase can be made so much easier by simply having a clear objective to focus on: consistency and quantity. Setting these clear rules and specific time frames for each of the three phases in your calendar, it is much more likely you are going to stick to learning that new thing and even more likely you actually end up getting good at it. It is a process!