Yesterday I lost several ping-pong games to a friend. I was frustrated, not because I wasn't trying, but because my fundamentals were wrong. My stance was off, my footwork sloppy, and I didn't understand spin. That moment cut through the noise: when you're stuck, more effort rarely helps. Better practice does.
This is the lesson I keep relearning: defeats are data. They tell you what to fix.
Learning Through Defeat
Losing felt personal, but quitting would guarantee I never improved. Instead of grinding more matches, I needed to step back: study stance, practice controlled drills, and isolate the one thing I didn't understand: spin. Playing more without fixing technique would only reinforce bad habits.
This applies to everything: debugging a system, preparing for a promotion, or learning a new language. When progress stalls, the answer is rarely more hours. It's better structure, clearer feedback, and deliberate practice.
When I lost at ping pong yesterday, it was emotionally difficult. The losses were hard to digest, but giving up would mean never coming back stronger. This time, instead of just grinding through more games, I need to step back, learn the correct stance, practice the proper shots, and truly master the technical skills. Simply playing more won't fix what's broken. The flaw is in my technique, not my competitive spirit.
The same principle applies everywhere. In software engineering, in career growth, in life. When we're in the game, we need to keep learning and adapting. Learning isn't optional. It's essential.
I've noticed this pattern in my career too. I've been developing software well recently, yet I'm "still L61" while some friends got promoted faster. That's tough to hear. But I'm learning that others might have a steeper growth curve than mine, while I can have a longer one than theirs. Your path to success can look completely different from others, and that's okay.
The Three Pillars of Continuous Learning
1. Patience: Trust the Process
Being patient is crucial when dealing with any learning process. When you're patient, you can focus on the journey, and the results will naturally follow. Our tendency to rush everything often sends us in the wrong direction.
Think about the Chinese bamboo tree. It doesn't grow at all during the first five years, then suddenly in the sixth year, it erupts. You cannot compete with someone who has learned for two hours every day for 365 days. The gap will keep widening until it becomes insurmountable. The key is doing your best during this time, trusting that consistent effort will compound.
A Vivid Example of Invisible Progress
A friend of mine learned conversational Spanish by doing 30 minutes a day for 90 days. At day 30 she felt like nothing had changed. At day 60 she could follow short videos. By day 90 she was holding 10-minute conversations. The progress looked invisible until it wasn't, then it felt exponential.
That's the pattern: small daily inputs, delayed visible outputs, then sudden, compounding gains.
2. Discipline: Maintain Your Structure
I've recently discovered a problem in my routine: late-night cooking and being overly active on Teams messages. When I'm too engaged on Teams, I lose hours of structure. I love working with structure, going to the gym at 6:00, finishing by 7:30 so I can meal prep properly. When my structure broke down, my cooking suffered. I've been eating mostly pasta for weeks now.
Here's what I've learned: once structure is broken, it's incredibly difficult to rebuild. A structured life means dedicating time to what matters: future family, meaningful work, community. The fruits of discipline are sweet, but they require constant tending.
3. Focus: Eliminate Distractions
Distractions are everywhere in today's society. Our brains are constantly stimulated by external noise and unhelpful environments. For me, TV is a personal weakness. When I watch too much, I get lost in it, and my brain starts craving more distraction.
Here's the key insight: if you enhance focus in your life, your brain will naturally crave more focus. If you enhance distraction, it will crave distraction. To produce valuable work, we need to stop context-switching constantly.
The best way to avoid distractions? Embrace silence. Be silent. Be with your thoughts. Be bored.
What Should You Learn?
I'm going to ask something hard from you: spend less time on Instagram and your phone. "Oh no, I can't live without it!" I bet you can. No one has just taught you how. The central idea is redirecting your time toward meaningful activities: meditation, writing, reading, playing sports, anything that doesn't involve scrolling.
Learning keeps you mentally young, sharpens your thinking, expands your knowledge, and makes you a better communicator. When you understand things deeply, you speak with confidence and clarity.
Outside of Work
Don't just learn technical skills. To grow in all areas of life, diversify your learning:
Physical & Practical Skills
- Fitness & Nutrition: Learn proper exercise form and diet basics. Start with a single YouTube channel like AthleanX or Jeff Nippard.
- Cooking: One of the most important life skills. Begin with mastering 3 to 5 healthy recipes you can rotate. Learning to cook good food means maintaining a healthy diet and lifestyle.
Mental Enrichment
- History: If you're interested, take a single course on Coursera or read one acclaimed history book per quarter.
- Mathematics or Physics: I sometimes open MIT OpenCourseWare lectures and spend an hour learning. It's genuinely refreshing.
- Finance: Understanding how money and the economy work is crucial for software engineers who often neglect this. Start with "The Psychology of Money" by Morgan Housel.
Personal Goals
- My Goal: Ping Pong: Over the next two months, I'm focusing on fundamentals. I have decent hand-eye coordination, but I don't understand spins. That's my gap to close.
- Your Goal: Pick one skill you've always wanted to develop and commit to 30 minutes daily for 60 days.
Within Work: Software Engineering
The biggest mistake a software engineer can make is thinking they know everything. Software engineering is a continuous learning process. Pick one area per quarter:
- Networks and distributed systems
- Security fundamentals
- AI and machine learning
- DevOps and deployment pipelines
- AI-first development approaches
Excelling at software engineering provides the income to live comfortably and invest in quality learning resources.
How to Learn Effectively
Four Primary Sources:
- YouTube: Free tutorials and lectures (MIT OpenCourseWare, 3Blue1Brown for math, Fireship for tech)
- Books: Deep, focused learning that sticks (aim for one book per month)
- Online Courses: Structured paths with expert guidance (Coursera, Udemy, Udacity)
- Mentorship: Ask questions to friends and colleagues who excel in areas you want to grow
My Challenge to You:
- Choose ONE area from the list above
- Dedicate 30 minutes daily for the next 30 days
- Track your progress in a simple journal
- Share what you learned with someone else
Quotes to Remember
"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young." — Henry Ford
"The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you." — B.B. King
"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." — Benjamin Franklin
"We overestimate what we can do in a day and underestimate what we can do in a year." — Bill Gates
"Small disciplines repeated with consistency every day lead to great achievements." — John C. Maxwell
Conclusion: Your Move
Learning is not a destination. It's a lifelong journey that shapes who we become. My defeats on the ping pong table yesterday weren't setbacks; they were invitations to learn, to improve, and to become better.
In a world filled with distractions and instant gratification, choosing to learn is an act of rebellion. It's choosing depth over superficiality, growth over stagnation, and long-term fulfillment over short-term pleasure.
You don't need to learn everything at once. Start small. Pick one area from above. Dedicate just 30 minutes daily. Trust the process, be patient like the Chinese bamboo tree, and maintain the discipline to show up even when progress feels invisible.
The gap between who you are today and who you could be a year from now is filled with one simple practice: consistent, intentional learning.
So here's your first step: close this tab after reading. Don't scroll to the next article. Instead, open YouTube or grab a book on something you've always wanted to learn. Spend just 30 minutes on it today. Then do it again tomorrow.
Your future self is counting on the learning you choose to do today. After all, the beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you. It's yours to keep, to grow, and to share with the world.
What will you learn today?
What's your 30-minute learning goal for 2026? Drop it in the comments below! 👇
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