Things that must seem perfectly obvious to others, judging from their success in achieving competency, are often quite incomprehensible to me until/unless I can watch and practice what they are doing.

There’s an interesting article in the 9 April 2010 issue of Science, “Conquering by Copying,” that reviews a computer tournament of best strategies for succeeding in unfamiliar environments.  If I understand the argument correctly, copying successes of others while devoting only a small portion of time (say 10%) to innovation is the optimum approach. Translated to personal experience, I do better with examples, teachers and monitored practice with real-time feedback than with instruction manuals or even videos. I envy those who can take an idea or an instruction manual and accomplish something worthwhile.