Performance is the enemy

What do I mean? Well it's golf, I'm afraid.

I like a bit of competition and find it motivating. But I've noticed recently that focusing on my score is slowing down the improvement in my golf. I had a lesson with the pro this morning and we changed one or two things. I can see they work and I can see why they work. I was pretty pleased actually.

So I go out to play one or two holes and wouldn't you know it ... put a flag in my eyeline and the desire for a score overwhelms the desire to improve.

The bottom line is you can't learn if you're scared to make a mistake.

Peek-a-boo ... learning is fun

I've been reading up on theories of intellectual development. Hmmm. As with the way with these things, ones mind wanders.

So at one point I found myself reading a description of part of Piaget's thinking about children's development, and I realised why peek-a-boo makes sense. But we all play peek-a-boo with babies ... we don't need to know that there's a theory. So why do we? Is it because it makes the baby laugh? And why does the baby laugh? Is it partly so that we'll play with them? It makes all sorts of sense. Learning is fun!

How quickly we can forget, though.