I’m not a naturally good swimmer.

I never have been.

It’s taken a lot of hard work coupled with an immense amount of attention to detail. Attention to the details that talent usually doesn’t want to attend to.

The hard work has certainly paid off. I won’t deny that.

But, for someone without natural talent, the accumulation of years of attending to the minutiae has paid off even more.

After 32 years of swimming, I’ve learned that talent can take us to a point. Skill, though, takes us past that point. By focusing on skill—by focusing on mastery—we can extend past the talent ceiling.

In my years as a coach, though, I’ve seen too many people stop at the talent level. And, it makes sense. Talent is an immediate marker. By focusing on talent we can easily get to our fastest point and then just maintain status quo.

But, as a coach, it’s sad to see.

There’s so much potential underneath. Potential that could be tapped into if, and only if, we are willing to stretch beyond talent.

There’s so much potential available to each of us if we are willing to set aside our ego and focus on the minutiae.

To focus on the process rather than the outcome.

While talent is quick, skill takes time.

While talent provides in-the-moment feedback, skill doesn’t give immediate feedback.

While talent provides comfort, skill provides questions and uncertainty.

Focusing on skill can slow us down.

Focusing on skill can be boring.

Focusing on skill can be mundane.

But, coming from someone without a lot of talent, skill—mastery—is what will, eventually, take you to new levels.

To focus on skill over talent—to focus on mastery—is to change our mindset and to change our behaviors to finally reach our peak performance.

Mastery: A Cognitive and Behavioral Endeavor

The Oxford Dictionary defines mastery as great knowledge about or understanding of a particular thing. In a similar, yet slightly different fashion Merriam-Webster states that mastery is a possession or display of great skill or technique. While Oxford focuses on the learning component—the cognitive aspects—of a particular skill, Merriam-Webster focuses more on the actions—the behavioral aspects.

Therefore, to master something—to improve—we need to get both our mind and our body right.

Lately, I’ve been writing a lot about Seth Godin’s book, The Practice. It’s good. It’s really good. If you care about your work—whatever that may look like—it’s worth a read.

As an athlete, if you care about your work—the mindset around it and the actual physical component—it’s worth a read.

Because being a skilled athlete—being skilled at anything—requires engagement in and embracement of the process…the work…The Practice.

While the whole book is jam-packed with gems, there’s one section that needs to be pasted on every athlete’s wall so that you come back to it day after day after day. There’s one section that should be a daily focus for athlete’s who want to move past talent.

191. The Truth about Getting Better by Seth Godin

Mundane doesn’t mean what I though it meant.
The word “mundane” actually refers to the real world: the practical, skills-based, reality-focused trusts of the world around us.
In his breakthrough paper, “The Mundanity of Excellence,” researcher Daniel Chambliss found the perfect laboratory to test for what it means to level up.
He reviewed the habits, backgrounds, and performances of competitive swimmers. It’s an ideal population to examine because:
1. There are clear levels. From country-club league swimmers all the way up to the Olympics, participants are clearly in only one group in the hierarchy at a time.
2. Performance is easily measured. It’s not like figure skating where the judges matter.
3. There are almost not external factors. The pool is the pool. Luck is easy to rule out, and performance can be measured over time.
4. There’s a large and fairly varied population of competitors.
Here are the facts that he discovered:
There is no quantitative difference in training. People at higher levels of performance don’t spend more time training.
There is no requirement for social deviance. The athletes at the highest level had just as many friends and just as normal a life as dedicated swimmers at lower levels.
There is no talent differentiation. The ability to swim fast is not something you’re born with
In fact, there were two key differences between great competitors and good ones:
1. Skill. The best swimmers swim differently than the ones who don’t perform well. they do their strokes differently; they do their turns differently. These are learned and practiced skills.
2. Attitude. The best swimmers bring a different attitude to their training. They chose to find delight in the parts that other swimmers avoid.
This is their practice.
There isn’t just one swimming culture, there are several. The swimmers who hang out at the country-club pool are very different in skill, approach, and affect than those who compete on the varsity team, and the culture of the variety team isn’t lie the one month swimmers who compete at the Nationals.
It turns out that it’s not training hours or DNA that changes outcomes. It’s our belief in possibility and the support of the culture around us.
Creators have a better attitude, because they’ve figured out how to trust the process and trust themselves to work with it.
Attitudes, of course, are skills, which is good news for all of us, because it means that if we care enough, we can learn.

The Cognitive

“Attitude. The best swimmers bring a different attitude to their training. They chose to find delight in the parts that other swimmers avoid. This is their practice.” -Seth Godin

Early in Godin’s book, he states that we live in an outcome-based society. In other words, we want to see the immediate results of our work. We want evidence that our time engaging in the work has actually paid off. Unfortunately, this mindset gets us in trouble because it limits us.

Rather, we need to embrace a mindset of possibility. A mindset of “what if…”

For example, with swimming, without spending too much time building up my endurance, I can hold 1:10s per 100 freestyle without too much effort. It’s kind of a baseline that my fitness—my talent—is there. I could stop there and be content because, as a 40-year-old, I’m going to hold my own with most Master’s level swimmers or I’m going to do okay in the swim portion of triathlon races.

But, I don’t necessarily want to “hold my own” and I don’t want to do “okay” in triathlon races.

I know there is more in the tank.

And, if others can swim certain times, I have a belief that I, eventually, can also swim certain times.

So, I ask myself, “What can I do?” This then leads to:

“What if…I focus on bring my hands all the way to my thigh on each ‘push phase’ of my stroke.”

“What if…I focus on doing three dolphin kicks of each wall.”

“What if…I drop my head just a little bit while I’m swimming.”

“What if…I add in a full 6-beat kick into my freestyle.”

The list could go on because in swimming—in any endeavor—there are minutiae that we can focus on that will help us improve.

When our attitude is on talent, we focus on such a narrow band of our abilities. As athletes, this usually has to do with our endurance and/or our power output. But, when our attitude is focused on skill, we focus on all the things that we can uncover that can incrementally make us faster.

When it comes to mastery-focused training, we need to be in the right mindset: “It turns out that it’s not training hours or DNA that changes outcomes. It’s our belief in possibility and the support of culture around us.”

So, as you embark on the process of achieving your goals, be relentless in your “What if…” questions.

To shift our focus to our skills, we need to attend to the skill of getting our mindset—the cognitive aspect of mastery—right.

“Attitudes, of course, are skills, which is good news for all of us, because it means that if we care enough, we can learn.” -Seth Godin

The Behavioral

“Skill. The best swimmers swim differently than the ones who don’t perform well. they do their strokes differently; they do their turns differently. These are learned and practiced skills.” -Seth Godin

We get better by doing something repeatedly. Getting better at something is, frankly, quite mundane. Our attitude helps get us there, but doing the same thing over and over—intentionally—is what builds skill.

As Godin tells us, “[t]alent is something we’re torn with: it’s in our DNA, a magical alignment of gifts. But skill? Skill is earned. It’s learned and practiced and hard-won. It’s insulting to call a professional talented. She’s skilled, first and foremost. Most people have talent, but only a few care enough to show up fully, to earn their skill. Skill is rarer than talent. Skill is earned. Skill is available to anyone who cares enough.”

If you care enough, you can engage in the behaviors that will take you to the next level. You can move past talent and exist in a rare group: one that deeply cares about skill.

In regard to swimming:

Do the drills—over and over and over—with intention.
When a set calls for kicking, kick and kick and kick…even if you move really slow.
If your coach tells you to bilateral breathe, then bilateral breathe.
Scull.
Use your snorkel.
Get rid of your safety tools—fins, paddles, pull buoy—that make things easier or faster.
Learn the others strokes to get the indirect benefit to your primary stroke.

Oh, the list could go on and on and on. And, the same is true for any endeavor: there is a list of behaviors that we can focus on that will move us, in time, past our talent.

Engage in the behaviors—and find new and nuanced behaviors—to build your mastery as an athlete.

“The word ‘mundane’ actually refers to the real world: the practical, skill-based, reality-focused truth of the world around us.” -Seth Godin

The Result: You Can Be A Better [Insert Athletic Endeavor]

When we change our practice to a mastery-focused emphasis, we take ourselves to new levels.

Godin reminds us that, “[i]f you put the effort into your practice, you will be rewarded with better. Better taste, better judgment, and better capabilities.”

With swimming, if you put cognitive effort into your practice, and if you put behavioral effort into your practice, you’ll swim better. And, in turn, eventually you’ll swim faster…well beyond where talent would take you.

The same is true with any other athletic endeavor. Put both cognitive effort and behavioral effort into your practice, and you’ll break through the talent ceiling.

You will perform better.

When our mind is honed and our body is honed, the only thing that can possibly result is peak performance.

Coaching Philosophy: Mastery-Focused Training Will Take You To New Levels