We live overloaded with information. We all know this already. We also live in a world where most try to improve themselves to be better every day. At least in high performance environments, if this is not the case, you are left behind. Darwin called natural selection and adaptation to the environment; coaches call it maximum demand. The question is:
Does having more information make us better, or does it confuse us even more?
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On the other hand, the following approach becomes necessary:
How can I take advantage of the new information, to know more and/or be better?
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Because clearly, the relationship is not always direct.
It is important to be clear that information and knowledge are not the same. You can have a lot of information but know very little. Let’s clarify concepts:
Let’s see some examples applied to our sports reality:
Let’s go deep now, with the two concepts in the middle: Information and Knowledge.
If we go back to the first sentence of the article; We live overloaded with information, although this may seem like a benefit, many times it becomes a problem. In a world full of immediacy, infinity of resources, accumulating them without assimilating them, makes no sense. Consuming information without processing it can make you choke.
On the other hand, the information must be able to filter and then interpret it. And for that, knowledge is required. This is the reason why simply copying will not make you better. Although, you can copy and for a while confuse a few, you run the risk of confusing yourself. Copy and exercise from another coach, imitate another player, replicate an Excel, etc. All this, if you do not convert it into knowledge, will not benefit you in the medium/long term.
Go to the basics, learn how and why things are done, and then apply them to your reality. Yes, it takes more time and more effort, but it is more useful. Let’s see some examples of the two options for the same information:
To sum up, we could say that the effort invested in converting information into knowledge will always be worth it, because that is the ticket, to go to an even better place.
In conclusion,
“The enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge”
Stephen Hawking