How do I get good at something? (2024)

Coach Dan here to share some super secret tips on how to get better at anything. That’s right, I said anything! Whether it be basketball, Pokemon Cards, life skills, anything, I’m going to share with you the secret sauce that you need to succeed. This is what I preach to myself, my kids, my wife, my players across three youth sports teams, and to all of you who want to succeed at a specific goal. Here it is:

“But, Coach Dan, that sounds way too simple. It can’t be that easy, right?”

If this is your reaction, I agree! it is very simple. I’m a huge believer in the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) method, mainly because my brain can’t handle multiple things at once. I will disagree with the last part of that statement, however. If you have ever tried this method, you know that it is not easy.

There are three parts to this method. Lets break each one down:

1. Do one thing

The first step in this process is to identify what you want to be good at. Every week at basketball practice, I ask my players what they think they need to work on. If they don’t know, I’ll pick a strength of that player and tell them to get even better at it. Maybe it is a particular dribble move, or a shot from one specific spot… The key here is that it is specific.

This one thing has to be small. Make it as granular as possible. It also has to be one thing, not multiple things. It has been scientifically proven that the human brain cannot think about two things at once. When we “multitask,” all we are doing is either bouncing back and forth between two tasks performing each at half capacity, or finding a way for our brain to “knock out two birds with one stone,” like Hezie’s math teacher telling him to “practice multiplication every night” and me telling him to practice Pokemon Cards every night. If the goal requires multiple small pieces to make a whole, like learning the pitching motion, we pick one aspect of it to focus on at a time instead of tackling the whole, so that we don’t get overwhelmed. Here is a personal example:

“A question well asked is a problem half solved.”

A few years ago during a review, it was brought to my attention that I was bringing morale down at work, to the point where it was stalling out my career. Instead of being defensive or assuming I knew what the causes of this were, I went into observation mode for a while. I watched how some of the more positive people in the office interacted with my coworkers. The difference I saw was primarily their smile; they acted happy all the time, even when they weren’t.

I observed my tendencies to show up miserable, like I didn’t want to be there, or like I was angry. In truth, I was bringing my frustration with other parts of my life into work with me, but my coworkers thought my mood was directed at them. Once I was able to identify the problem, I made a list of the steps I needed to take, and I worked on them piece by piece. Eventually, my coworkers began to notice a change in my demeanor, and the mood in the department began to shift. I got a promotion directly because of these changes at my next review, and I’m now known to my bosses as an asset who can unite different parts of our company instead of a toxic liability who drives people apart.

Take your time to properly identify what you want to work on, and the process will be more fruitful, because a question well asked is a problem half solved.

The picture above is what inspired me to write this article. Often times, I’ll go through the grind, and I’ll miss the small victories. I’ll become so engrossed in the end goal that isn’t happening for me, and I’ll get discouraged and quit. Embracing the little victories along the way makes the process of creating positive habits more sustainable. Eventually, the small gains will get harder and harder to come by, and you will need every bit of motivation to keep pushing toward your goal.

We want to strive to make baby steps toward our successes, not giant leaps. This is because baby steps are sustainable over time, and giant leaps are not. There are many maxims that I have heard over the years that reflect this: “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” “You eat an elephant one bite at a time,” and “Life is a marathon, not a sprint,” are a few that come to mind. I love the story of the tortoise and the hare, because it illustrates this mindset so well.

“It is you vs. you.”

I tell my sports teams that its always “us vs. us” on gamedays. What I mean by this is we can’t measure success solely by our score vs. the other team; rather, we need to measure our success by how we played in relation to ourselves. We need to be asking questions like this:

“Did we improve today on what we did yesterday?”

“…One foot in front of the other.”

A couple summers ago, I was helping coach our All Star team in 7u Coach Pitch. We really struggled. I think we won a total of two games that summer. Several of the kids were discouraged by this; there were some players who were noticeably checked out toward the end of the season. Our team was called “Turkey Feet,” after the street our home park is on. Our logo looked like this:

After the last game of the last tournament, I noticed that we were all hanging our heads, because we just had a game get away from us that we should have won. I told the kids to take their hats off, look at the logo, and tell me what they saw. “A dumb turkey,” is what one kid said, like the name of our club was to blame for our lack of success. I said “maybe so, but that turkey is putting one foot in front of the other, which is what we need to do from here.” The players from that team ended up winning a tournament next year. When you struggle to make improvement, or you think you are so far down in a hole that you can’t possibly get out, just put one foot in front of the other, and keep taking baby steps, no matter what. I promise that things will get better.

You need a plan with a proven track record that uses a measurable process; ideally, you find an expert or a coach to help you.

We have identified that the steps need to be small. Now, how do we figure out what the contents of those steps needs to be? I can only speak to an area of expertise. For an athletic move, like throwing a pitch, I break the motion down into smaller motions to build up strength and confidence, then combine them to make a whole. I’ll start with basic grip and release, the fingers and wrist, then I’ll move to torque and turns, rocker drills, and double sets to teach the upper body, lower body, and rhythm mechanics of the pitching motion. I will measure arm strength through long toss distance and radar gun, and track this throughout a season if a pitcher wants to gain velocity, all while working on the specific things in their motion that drive the results. I love video recording, because it allows the athlete to see what I see when I observe and coach the player.

These aren’t drills and processes that I came up with on my own. My process of teaching pitchers comes from hundreds of hours of research and film study, taking drills and methodologies from players and coaches far more qualified and experienced than me, and application to my own pitching so I know what it feels like to do the things I’m teaching.

Did you know all of that about improving a pitching motion? If you did, you should help me coach next spring! My point is this: it is very hard to get better at something by yourself. If you already know how to get to where you want to be, you would either be there or on the road to it. Coaches and experts are necessary because they can see things you can’t, and they know things that you don’t know. They can provide plans that give you specific things to do to improve, and they can measure your progress objectively.

My biggest temptation when I’m applying this methodology to an aspect of my life is to cheat on the measurables. “No, I didn’t eat those chips,” “Yeah, I ran that full mile,” or “I’m just going to not write that one down” are things I’ve told myself at one time or another. A coach can be there to tell you that the only one you are cheating is yourself, and that might be the extra layer of motivation you need to be honest with yourself and truly improve.

3. Every day

This is where the magic happens. There's an urban legend that Albert Einstein once said that compounding interest is the most powerful force in the universe. While it is unlikely he ever said this, it there is still truth to it. For those who aren’t math inclined, just know that small gains really start to add up over time. If we take our very small “one thing”, and grow it by “one percent,” every day, here is what we get:

After one week, we are 7% better at that one skill.

After one month, we are roughly 30% better at that skill, and…

After one year, we are 365% better at that skill!

If you want to become three times better at a right to left between the legs crossover, then work on it for 10 minutes every day for a year. If you want to become thirty percent better at a matchup in Pokemon Cards, play the matchup hands up with a competent opponent every day for a month. If you want to get __% better at __________, get one percent better at it every day for __ days.

Simple! But as we have discussed, this is not easy.

I hope this helps you achieve your goals. If you liked this article, subscribe to my newsletter, and share it with a friend. Have you had recent successes? What is your one thing you are working on right now? Please share those with me in the comments.