“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
― Marcel Proust
I think there’s a downside to getting inspired all the time.
You’re super excited…
And then realise you’ve got SO MUCH to learn before learning the new skill, hitting the new goal or launching the new business idea 😅.
Know what I mean?
This happens to me ALL the dang time.
But I came across an idea the other day that made me not feel so overwhelmed…
It’s called the ‘metapattern’ theory.
Gregory Bateson created it to describe ‘patterns of patterns’ in 1979 after noticing metapatterns are all over the place in nature:
👉 The spiral in a snail shell and a hurricane (seen from above)
👉 The veins in a leaf and the streams in a river basin
👉 The crinkly structure of bark and crocodile skin
Think about it.
Metapatterns are everywhere in the world of skills too.
What if there was a metapattern to whatever you’re learning right now?
And what if… figuring that metapattern out helped you learn 100x faster?
The more I think about it…
- Metapatterns explain why someone who’s learned one language can learn another language much faster.
- Metapatterns explain why someone who’s launched one business can launch another business much faster.
- Metapatterns explain why someone who’s hit a small goal can suddenly ramp up the difficulty of a bigger goal – and hit it much faster.
But there’s a problem…
The metapatterns I’ve just described all require effort up-front.
And if you’re struggling right now you might think ‘It’s going to be this hard forever.’
But that’s not true.
The more you do something, the easier it gets, and the better you get at it.
Doing stuff you want to do repeatedly (even if you’re bad at it) is to your benefit.
You’re carving out space in nature for your own success.
Keep pushing.
The pattern will reveal itself soon.