The degree of development of life mastery is determined by the qualification or degree of mastery. At the same time, you can improve your mastery endlessly, becoming a genius in the eyes of others.
Adults with secondary education have at least an elementary degree in three mastery levels. Most of us have developed self-collectedness and mental skills since early childhood, at school and university. Mostly it happened unconsciously, and maybe some still don’t understand the value of such fundamental mastery.
After university, people concerned about self-development tend to “pump up” their applied specialist competencies. They are tormented by the questions “where to study” and “what to learn”, hunt for new best practices, go to conferences and attend three-day courses. And they intuitively do it right. It is applied mastery that brings results in the physical world. After all, the employer requires mastery in the applied competencies of a specialist that he needs. However, insufficient qualifications in self-collectedness or mental mastery do not allow you to quickly master new applied practices. A person’s personal educational trajectory should take into account three types of mastery and it is impossible for a person to be guided by the norms of education of the last century, paying attention only to applied mastery.
Until recently, the norms of life were subject to one dominant strategy. In childhood and youth, a person was trained in self-collectedness and mental mastery, so that later he could choose a profession and successfully master it. A high degree of self-collectedness is needed in any activity. Would you like to become an officer, a scientist or a musician, but without self-collectedness anywhere. It is difficult to achieve professional mastery without her, so she was put first. Adults tried to draw the child’s attention to the fact that you need to be disciplined, organized and be able to cope with your emotions on your own (and not at the expense of others). And still many adult parents make comments about the low qualifications of self-collectedness.
As for thinking mastery, those who chose a simpler profession were content with an average qualification in thinking mastery. State education did not allow excessive retraining: it makes no sense for a turner or a pianist to study mathematical analysis. The mental foundation was laid exactly so that a person could master and further improve in applied mastery in the chosen profession. Even after vocational school, you can become a turner of the 6th category, that is, get the highest qualification in the mastery of a specialist.
Changing a profession was not a common practice until recently. Therefore, there were no requirements to change or increase mental mastery. Now applied practices have begun to change rapidly compared to past centuries, and the existing experience has become more often reset. You can be a master in turning or in the practice of SEO optimization, but this knowledge of applied activities does not guarantee rapid retraining if suddenly the need for your competence disappears. High skill in any one applied practice will not save you from problems in the future. Moreover, if at the beginning of the XX century a cab driver suddenly had the intelligence to retrain as a taxi driver, then he could no longer worry about the future. But in our time, a single retraining may not be enough. It is quite possible that people of the XXI century will have to change their profession more than once. Therefore, it is important to invest in the development of mental mastery, which gives the ability to work with different applied practices.
Unfortunately, many people who want self-development repeat the norms of behavior of their parents, grandparents. They are trying to find the grail that allows them to instill confidence in the future, among the professions of the future offered by visionaries. This is a rather risky bet, because even in the IT field, many professions will disappear. The basis of the life mastery of the future is mental mastery. A modern person needs to shift the focus of attention from the applied level to the mental one. As the intellect increases (and the activity outlook develops), it will be possible to make a turn to a new professional side faster. There is enough intelligence to get used to a new activity faster than others. But for this, adults will need an upgrade of thinking mastery, since transdisciplines have changed significantly recently.