[Weekly Inspiration] How to Get Better at Things You Care About

In the Learning Zone, the goal is improvement. We focus on things we have not yet mastered with the intention to drive our mastery and achieve future growth and performance. Mistakes are to be expected and embraced, argues Eduardo, because mistakes are critical components of improvement. When we study new subjects or practice unfamiliar work, we’re in the Learning Zone.

Meanwhile, the Performance Zone is where most of us get our work done. The goal of this zone is to simply do the best job we can, concentrating on what we have mastered and executing our work properly. Mistakes should be minimized or eliminated entirely, because mistakes hinder performance. This is where most of us spend our time at work, because we want to do the best we can.

Eduardo argues that we need all to spend more time in the Learning Zone, because spending too much time focused on our immediate performance needs can, ironically, hinder performance long-term. The Learning Zone is where we improve, where we grow, and where we develop innovations. The Performance Zone is critical to our success, but if too much emphasis is placed on performance, stagnation occurs.

The most successful individuals alternate between these two spaces, maintaining a keen awareness of which is needed in any given situation. They know when stakes are high and when stakes are low and choose when to learn or perform accordingly

Edmentum strives to build solutions that embrace both performance and learning, and those principles apply for both educator and student. Be sure to take some time for yourself to understand where you have opportunities to learn, rather than just perform, because we should all keep growing.