Full Loops

“The eight laws of learning are explanation, demonstration, imitation, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition.”

John Wooden

I often find my self fascinated by the different lives that people lead. The owner of my favorite coffee shop, what’s her life like? How did she end up owning a coffee shop? It’s questions like these that color between the lines of my life, and it’s a curiosity that drinks from an endless cup. However, I also think often about how, despite our disparate life experiences, people are fundamentally very similar, made up of the same biological ingredients. I would also argue that most of the differences we perceive relative to others, are really just that, perceived, a product of individual notions of reality. But I digress, that’s a philosophical discussion I am ill-equipped to approach. What I am more concerned with is the process by which one person can become the owner of a small business, while their neighbor delivers vital goods to grocery stores and restaurants. Both these lives can seem impossible for me to live, but are demonstrably attainable.

This brings me back to John Wooden’s eight laws of learning, and more specifically, laws four through eight. Repetition. I love the way Wooden presents this law; repetition is the very thing he uses to make it memorable. Without looking up, can you remember the first three laws? Maybe you are a better reader than I am, but I find it much more difficult to remember the first three. Whether or not Wooden intended for that, I don’t know, but clearly he favors repetition, and I agree. It’s the things that we repeat the most that determine our path in life, and it is responsibility of each of us to get that part right for ourselves.

Equally as important as what we repeat, is how we repeat it. My shorthand way to remind myself of this is to think about completing full loops. It’s probably easiest to explain this with an example, although the concept is far from new. I want to be a better writer, so a full loop could be writing and publishing a blog post. That’s the thing that I want to complete and repeat. I can’t stop at writing the blog, I have to publish it and complete the full loop. Stopping earlier than that inherently sets a limit on my potential as a writer. In my experience, leaving things partially completed has been the barrier that prevents me from honing skills that interest me. That might sound dramatic but I know it’s true.

The other side of this coin is a lack of focus on the right loops, or misplaced focus on the wrong loops. Something I often struggle with is biting off more than I can chew, an example of the former. This is so easy to do and derails side projects like a buckled railroad. There are various flavors of this, some originating in perfectionism and others in unmitigated curiosity. For example, in my writing endeavor, I might postpone publishing a blog post by attempting to perfect the website that hosts my blog. Or maybe I start writing a new blog post before I finish the first one (I am presently guilty of this on multiple counts). Whatever it is, there is always something that can get in the way of completing the full loop that matters most, and momentum goes to die where there is incomplete progress. Of course, repeating destructive behaviors also leads to destructive results; if you go to the bar every night, you are practicing for alcoholism, if not already a seasoned veteran.

The constructive loops differentiate the coffee shop owner and the delivery driver. At various points, each of them completed full loops that launched them on a life trajectory. The former might have started a business selling homemade coffee mugs out of their garage, completed many different business transactions, and ultimately built up the skills to open a coffee shop. The latter may have taken practice tests in order to get a commercial driver’s license, repeated various delivery routes for a local company, and bought his own truck to run his own routes. When I try to put myself in the shoes of others, I often skip to their current state, overlooking the dedication and practice that it took to get there. Nothing happens overnight, and the better we understand that, the more opportunities we have, so long as we are willing to complete the full loops required to seize them.

Other resources to check out

If you’ve read Atomic Habits, it’s plain to see how much that influenced this post. In fact, it’s more of a direct reaction. What I am really sharing is my synthesis of one of my favorite points of the book (and much of the other literature on habits), spliced together with concepts from other books I’ve recently read or listened to. “Full Loops” is a way for me to easily remember that my habits directly impact the course of my life, and that I ought to pay attention to them (that specifically is referred to as taming the horse’s of Plato’s Chariot Allegory in the Hidden Brain podcast episode linked below).

Other thoughts if you made it this far

Writing is hard. Even just writing this is far more difficult than I initially thought. The idea felt crystal clear in my mind before I took to the keys, but once I started typing, it proved challenging to convey the information I wanted. Anyone can write, but not everyone can effectively communicate ideas with their writing, and I’m sure even fewer still can convey emotions through writing. The process of writing allows me to appreciate the great, and even mediocre, writers much more. I am proud of this post today and I hope to one day look back on it and say to myself “wow, that was horrible”. Only time will tell if I succeed in that particular endeavor.