Find Your Hyperbolic Time Chamber

I hope you know Dragon Ball Z and the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.

If not: Dragon Ball Z is a Japanese-animated show (anime) and American television classic about Goku, a legendary warrior who was stranded on Earth as a young child. He grows into the protector of Earth and defends it against villains that threaten to destroy the entire universe.

Midway through the show, Goku and his friends face a powerful enemy that they’re persistently unable to defeat. To gain the strength they need, they decide to enter the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. Inside the chamber, time is distorted; one year in the chamber is a week on Earth. Additionally, gravity is ten times heavier inside the chamber. It’s the perfect environment for intense training.

All of the heroes spend at least a year in the chamber, and after Goku and his son emerges, they’re able to fight on a far higher level than before. They stand far above everyone else.

However, I’m not writing this article to talk about Dragon Ball Z. Everyone needs to find their Hyperbolic Time Chamber to improve themselves, to gain new skills and grow to excellence.

Deliberate practice can seem tough—even pointless—in the moment, but it increases your future quality of life improves dramatically. It’s what sets good apart from great. Deliberate practice in your own Hyperbolic Time Chamber will lead to improved efficiency if not overall more success. This is how to do it.

Identify what skills you want to train in your Hyperbolic Time Chamber.

Disclaimer: you don’t need a lofty goal.

You can choose any skill you want: writing, interpersonal skills, playing an instrument, or cooking. It doesn’t matter.

Here’s my recommendation: find your ideal skill at the intersection of interest and mission.

Interest provides the initial spark of motivation you need to begin working toward skill improvements. Interest doesn’t necessarily mean passion. If you’re passionate about something that’s valuable—awesome! However, if you don’t have anything you’re crazy about, that’s fine. Just find something, anything, that you take interest in. Use that as a starting point.

Mission is the second component. Your “ideal skill” should be something that has potential significance for you, a greater purpose. To be clear, it doesn’t need to have that now. You may just be an amateur cook now, but maybe later you want to host regular friends and family meals. Chords perplex you now, but you want to write your own songs about loneliness one day. Strangers scare you, but you want to be a public advocate and speaker for service workers. Mission is about having an inspiring force bigger than yourself.

Right now, you might have an interest but not a concrete mission. That’s fine. Practice your interest, and brainstorm missions along the way.

If you look for interest and mission, you don’t need “passion.” Interest will hook you in, and mission will keep you dedicated. Finding something to do and become great at isn’t about having a near-religious fervor for one thing since you were five years old. It’s about taking action and practicing.

Practice like crazy.

Here’s the hard part.

There’s no shortcut to becoming great at something. You just have to practice, practice, practice, practice, and… well, you get it. In the process of practicing, you’ll learn the ins and outs of what you need to do to become good at your skill.

I can’t stress this enough. You need serious time spent practicing. I recommend setting aside time to do so—depending on what your ideal skill is, you may need to practice anywhere from one to four hours every day. Make it a priority. Cut down unnecessary uses of your time.

Since you’re on this blog, you may know that I love sharing the things I’ve done to improve my interpersonal and people skills.

I remember when I had so much social anxiety that I could barely speak to my family (it wasn’t that long ago!).

That life sucked. I needed my own Hyperbolic Time Chamber to train my social skills and become the person I really wanted—needed—to be.

For a year, I challenged myself to work in a library and at least be active in helping people find books. Months after that, I started forcing myself to speak with people at my church. In the two years following, I decided to go to a social event every single day. Doing this stretched me and challenged me to learn how to have real (and entertaining) conversations.

Now I love meeting new people, and I found out that I’m an extrovert.

No online article could’ve taught me the things I learned by being around others. I’ve struggled and practiced a lot to gain my “ideal skill.” I’ve trained. You can do the same, and you will improve if you do.

Apply what you learn actively, and increase the difficulty.

After you emerge from your training, put what you learn into action.

Cooking one million apple pies at home for yourself is great, but wouldn’t it be great if someone else had a taste?

You’ve had hundreds of conversations with a friend. Maybe you can start speaking with strangers?

You calloused your fingers from hours of guitar practice, now can you record a song?

Use your hours of practice to do things you couldn’t before, and become good at whatever you choose to do. I find that this is the most rewarding part of the Hyperbolic training process. Once you start performing the things you’ve practiced, you’ll find immense enjoyment and probably want to continue.

What’s even better is that once you’ve achieved your goal, you don’t have to stop. Instead, set a bigger goal for yourself—something harder and better. As you continually practice, achieve goals, and repeat, you will become “so good [no one] can ignore you.”

Today’s extra article is what (partially) inspired this article. As social distancing removes our ability to spend time with others, I thought about writing this to encourage people to use their free time in a Hyperbolic Time Chamber. Dr. Cal Newport’s blog post here pushed me to actually write this.

QOTD: What do you want to become better at?

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