Skill Floors and Ceilings
Skill is often seen as an ever increasing bar. The higher the bar, the larger the level of skill and the more you are able to do.
I like to see skill as two bars, one representing your skill floor and the other your skill ceiling.
(These terms are already used in gaming spaces, but I don’t really have an alternative. The gaming-related definitions of these words are separate from what I’m talking about)
Your skill floor represents how you are able to perform at your absolute worst. An experienced juggler, even on a bad day, won’t be as bad as someone who has never juggled before.
In turn, your skill ceiling represents how you are able to perform at your absolute best.
The skill floor and skill ceiling together make the range of your ability: your skill range.
The smaller the range, the more consistent you are at operating at a specific skill level.
I think that this framework applies to a broad range of things.
In general, I feel like your skill floor improves at a faster rate than your skill ceiling. In other words you always improve your consistency before your raw ability.
That's why it's hard to see if you're improving. When we think of skill, we think of the absolute best that we can do. However, we don’t always do our absolute best.
For some things, gradually improving your consistency is a very hard thing to see, but it is progress nonetheless.
One other thing: I think that skill floors and skill ceilings are more probability-based than hard dividing lines.
Perhaps a juggler on a very bad day will just be unable to make things work, or on a very good day, they may push the boundaries of what they thought they were capable of.
I’ve noticed this in my journey in art a lot.
Very occasionally, I will make something that I never thought I was capable of. I look back on it and I think “how will I ever possibly recreate the success of this?” and most of the time I don’t. But, what I’m not seeing is the overall consistency of my art improve over time. I am getting better, just not in ways that are easy to see.