Familiarity vs. Understanding

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Watching 10 videos on how to perform a skill:

• how to solve an equation
• how to play an instrument
• any other skill you can think of

It can make you feel really confident you that you’ve understood the process.

But that feeling is often artificial.

And the illusion is shattered when you actually try to do it yourself and realize you can’t.

The thing is:

Watching creates familiarity.

Doing creates skill.

And these are not the same thing.

The watching can kind of show you what you need to practice.

And that’s good because you need to be practicing the right things.

But the watching itself doesn’t create the skill.

It’s the actual practice.

YOU practicing.

NOT you just watching

somebody else practicing.

That’s what imbues the skill

into you.

That is how you turn

the feeling of understanding

into real understanding.

Further reading:

• The Process of Building Intuition Can Itself Be Counter-Intuitive
• What Counts as Active Learning?

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