Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment

by George Leonard

With the introduction of each new stage, you’re going to have to start thinking again, which means things will temporarily fall apart.

How do you best move toward mastery? To put it simply, you practice diligently, but you practice primarily for the sake of the practice itself. Rather than being frustrated while on the plateau, you learn to appreciate and enjoy it just as much as you do the upward surges.

At the heart of it, mastery is practice. Mastery is staying on the path.

The courage of a master is measured by his or her willingness to surrender. This means surrendering to your teacher and to the demands of your discipline. It also means surrendering your own hard-won proficiency from time to time in order to reach a higher or different level of proficiency.

Actually, the essence of boredom is to be found in the obsessive search for novelty. Satisfaction lies in mindful repetition,

the discovery of endless richness in subtle variations on familiar themes.

For the master, surrender means there are no experts. There are only learners.

The long-distance runner working for a faster time on a measured course negotiates with homeostasis by using pain not as an adversary but as the best possible guide to performance.