📰For New Year's Resolutions, Never Think You're Too Old to Become a Beginner

新年立目标，做个初学者，永远不晚 For New Year’s Resolutions, Never Think You’re Too Old to Become a Beginner As we head into a new year there is one thing from the outgoing annus horribilis we should carry forward and even deepen: the spirit of the novice. Many people, in the face of such disruption, decided that they wanted to learn new things. But there’s a caveat: The older you are, the harder you’re going to have to work. There’s a happy twist, however: The more learning that older adults take on, the faster they seem to learn—the more they become like younger adults. How, then, to prepare ourselves to become better beginners? We can draw crucial guidance from a group of research subjects: infants learning to walk. For adults, the lessons are clear. One is that skills take time. Infants spend roughly a third of their day for six solid months practicing walking. So don’t worry if you’re still terrible at tennis after a few months. Infants also remind us that progress is often not linear. Infants seem to learn best “when operating near the limits of their current skill level.” In other words: Always be at the edge of what you can’t currently do. None of this is easy. If it feels easy, you’re not learning. If you don’t learn to fail, you’ll fail to learn. So let “beginner” be your watchword for twenty twenty-two. But watch for overreach in your resolutions.