Growth lies in the Goldilocks level between too easy and too hard. You’re seeking that “just right” sweet spot at the edge of your current capability. It’s here where you’re a bit uncomfortable. You’ve moved beyond the confines of your comfort zone and haven’t taken too large a leap into the unknown. Peter Hollins writes in The Art of Practice, “Expanding yourself beyond your current abilities takes a willingness to constantly stretch and challenge yourself to something bigger than your current reality.” It’s where you’re willing to struggle without becoming overwhelmed. Hollins offers a guideline that the level of difficulty towards which to strive be five to ten percent above your current skill level.
This is the ZPD or Zone of Proximal Development. The ZPD is a theory put forth by a Soviet developmental psychologist, Lev Vygotsky. Vygotsky suggested that the gap between what someone is capable of today and their potential future capability is filled by the ZPD or Zone of Proximal Development. This area is where near-term progress may be achieved.
The ZPD can be visualized in the form of an inverted-U curve graphed where Learning is displayed on the x axis and task difficulty presented on the y axis. Where the task difficulty is very low, learning, too, is low. This is the state where learners are bored and disengaged. At the other end of the extreme is where the task difficulty is very high, and the learning remains low. This is where learners are pushed too far too fast, and the skills being taught are outside the reach of the learner to grasp. This becomes the area of frustration, fear, and feeling overwhelmed. The ZPD is the peak of the inverted U which represents the high point of learning found at the sweet spot or Goldilocks level of skill difficulty. The ZPD is matched to the learner’s current level. The ZPD will shift for a learner based on their skill development. The ZPD is not the same for you as it is for me.
Learning happens beyond where you are today without trying to take on too much. The ZPD is found by knowing both where one is on their learning journey as well as having a clear goal as to destination. The dots between where one is and where one aims to be serve as a series of learning zones to pursue.
A separate idea, the Yerkes-Dodson or Arousal Curve, supports Vygotsky’s ZPD. The Arousal curve, too, results in an inverted U result. On the Yerkes-Dodson curve, the x axis represents performance and the y axis represents stress or arousal levels. Where stress is low, performance, too, is low. As on the ZPD, those that are under motivated are less engaged and will perform poorly. They can’t rise themselves off the couch to do things because they are so bored. On the other edge performance is compromised because the arousal levels are too high. When overcome by stress, focus is difficult, we’re flooded with emotions, we’re jittery and have less physical control of our bodies, and our emotions and physiology block our ability to think and process information.
The idea of ZPD and the optimal arousal curve are supported by a separate idea referred to as Hormesis. Hormesis is a term used to describe a healthy level of stress that supports the growth of an individual that is exposed to it. This can be contrasted with levels of stress that are so intense as to cause PTSD or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Hormesis helps, PTSD hurts. Hormesis breeds resilience and character strength, whereas PTSD sets people plagued with it back. The helpful level of stress is not no or low stress. It’s a level that presents as a weight for the individual to bear but in a load that doesn’t break them. Hormesis is the Goldilocks stress level. Not too hard, not too easy, just right.
Finding our ZPD is a pleasant place to be. Hollins notes, “The middle of the curve represents the optimal state where individuals are both motivated by pressure and yet not overloaded, enabling them to experience ‘flow.’” In an email, Dr. Jordan Peterson describes meaning as “the intersection between order and chaos.” Dr. Peterson considers this point the “sweet spot of learning and life.” Peterson is echoed by the recently deceased game designer, Bernard De Koven, who observed, “It is neither work nor play, purpose nor purposelessness that satisfies us. It is the dance between. We’re focused and fulfilled, fueled and on fire, when we’re working in our ZPD.
Collins encourage us to “Understand that progress requires pushing your boundaries and seeking new challenges.” The point of purposeful practice is to prioritize the zone of proximal development. As Daniel Coyle writes in The Talent Code, “Deep practice is built on a paradox: struggling in certain targeted ways-operating at the edges of your ability, where you make mistakes-makes you smarter. Or to put it a slightly different way, experiences where you’re forced to slow down, make errors, and correct them-as you would if you were walking up an ice-covered hill, slipping and stumbling as you go-end up making you swift and graceful without your realizing it.” In other words, struggle is where growth lies. Relish the rough to get tougher. Improvement implies effort. We don’t get better by taking it easy. As Seth Godin observed, “Noone gets paid to eat chocolate cake.” To push out the edges of our ability, we need to explore those edges. Stan Beecham writes in Elite Minds, “We discussed that if you truly want to get better, then you have to want your workouts to be hard, to be painful.”
The ZPD and optimal arousal curve (and Hormesis) are specific to an individual. The sweet spot is influenced by a learner’s personality. How responsive are they to stress? How able are they do manage various levels of anxiety? What is the current skill level of the learner? A third factor is the complexity of the task to be attempted. Finding the Goldilocks level for an individual is best done by someone that both knows the arena being studied as well as knowing the individual.
The first step to determining your ZPD is knowing both what level you’re on in your arena as well as what stage of skill acquisition you are at on your current level. The way we improve across skills follows a path. Every domain consists of progress levels of capability. On each level, we work through five stages to skill acquisition.
When we first encounter a new skill we fumble, stumble, and are humbled. We’re likely to grumble as a result. Our approach is awkward. We can’t complete the task. We fall off the bike. We drop the ball. We trip over our feet. Our fingers hit multiple keys on the keyboard simultaneously. We can’t pronounce the words let alone understand what we’re reading. The act is completely foreign to us. This first stage of skill is Initiation, and we are dependent on direction. In most learning contexts, for the student to have a chance at the outset, the skill must be broken down to its basic elements. There’s little hope to be able to execute the full movement or skill. Learners must be introduced to components of the skill and walked through with their hands held. Initiation involves being taught how to stand, what to look at, and how to hold things. The more complex the activity, the longer the time likely to be spent in the initiation stage.
From initiation we move to Acquisition. Acquisition is where we slowly develop the ability to perform the task still with guidance and with lots of opportunity for repetition. We get better at doing the parts of the performance and slowly venture into performing the full skill. We’re still making mistakes. We need to think our way through each part of the movement. Occasionally, we’re getting things right. We’re still slow and certainly struggle when under pressure.
Where we sustain our relationship with repetition, we may continue to improve our skills transitioning from acquisition to Consolidation. In the consolidation stage, we’re able to perform the skill reliably under low stakes conditions. Practicing at home or with friends, we can do okay. We may still make mistakes once in a while or not be smooth in our execution, but most of the time we’re getting things right. However, when in competitive or pressure packed performance conditions we may fail to deliver. We haven’t quite baked the skill into our skin so that it can be executed automatically. In the consolidation stage, we’re still thinking our way through the task.
As we continue our commitment, we move from consolidation to Refining. When we’re refining, our skill is recognizable by others. We’re seen as having competence. We can reliably perform the skill as well as perform under conditions of stress. Achieving the refining stage is the result of repetition. The skill has been built into your brain and nervous system. It can now be executed almost automatically. Your thoughts don’t get in the way of performance.
Each of the first four stages of skill acquisition are about tightening the tolerances of performance on the path to proficiency. We’re becoming less wrong at each stage. One way to look at the first four stages of acquiring skill is as an effort to conform. Before we can seek to outperform, we must learn how to perform. We’re building skill by copying those that have come before. Once we become experts at the skill we can seek to outperform. This is done in the final stage of skill acquisition.
The final stage of skill acquisition is Creative Variation. Creative Variation is where we have developed such command of a skill that we can now put our own spin or signature on it. We can take a skill and make it our own.
These five stages apply to most skills we seek to learn. They can apply to components of a skill and then can also be applied to connect skills. In other words, mastery becomes the cycle of skill acquisition repeated. Just because we get good and hit the higher stages of skill acquisition on a given skill doesn’t an expert make. We can refine our skills and still be a beginner. Skill acquisition moves through the depth of the activity and can have no end of future levels to seek. The ZPD for each of us is the one that applies to the stage of skill acquisition we’re seeking on the level we’re presently working. We’re seeking to stretch our current capability just a bit past our current comfort.
The cost to comfort is a cap on development. As trainer to cross-fit legends, Ben Bergeron, writes in Chasing Excellence, “The problem with limiting yourself to training, practicing, and living within your comfort zone is that it prevents you from growing and reaching your full potential.” In other words, as Professor Adam Grant writes in Hidden Potential, “Comfort in learning is a paradox. You can’t become truly comfortable with a skill until you’ve practiced it enough to master it. But practicing it before you master it is uncomfortable, so you often avoid it. Grant observes, “When discomfort is a signal of progress, you don’t want to run away from it. You want to keep stumbling toward it to continue growing.” Exploring the edge of your current abilities where you are making occasional errors attempting new techniques and feeling a little clumsy is where learning is most rich.
In Bounce, Matthew Syed, connects the point of purposeful practice with the idea of ZPD noting, “Purposeful practice is about striving for what is just out of reach and not quite making it; it is about grappling with tasks beyond current limitations and falling short again and again. Excellence is about stepping outside the comfort zone, training with a spirit of endeavor, and accepting the inevitability of trials and tribulations. Progress is built, in effect, upon the foundations of necessary failure. That is the essential paradox of expert performance.”
When we Zero-In on ZPD we’re “Becoming,” as Grant writes, “a creature of discomfort (that) can unlock hidden potential in many different types of learning.” It reflects our Intent on Improvement, our Joy in the Journey, and being Motivated by Mastery. It’s where we’re right where we want to be.
