Get Better at Anything

The author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller Ultralearning explores why it's so difficult for people to learn new skills, arguing that three factors must be met to make advancement possible, and offering 12 maxims to improve the way we learn.

Life revolves around learning—in school, at our jobs, even in the things we do for fun. Yet learning is often mysterious. Sometimes it comes fairly effortlessly: quickly finding our way around a new neighborhood or picking up the routine at a new job. In other cases, it's a slog. We may spend hours in the library, yet still not do well on an exam. We may want to switch companies, industries, or even professions, but not feel qualified to make the leap. Decades spent driving a car, typing on a computer, or hitting a tennis ball don't reliably make us much better at them. Improvement can be fickle, if it comes at all.

In Get Better At Anything, Scott Young argues that there are three key factors in...