It was put to me recently that “doubling down on a one-off thing that happened [is] the core of anime fighting powerup bullshit”. Having given it a little more thought, not only can I not deny it, but I’ve realized it’s central to all kinds of personal growth.
Chess and martial arts master Josh Waitzkin, in his book Learning How to Learn, related once how, in the wake of an injury to one of his arms, started to simply train without it and figured out how to turn his apparent weakness into a trap without his opponent realizing. But he’d only done so because of the injury itself, and the fact that he decided to metaphorically “double down” on it, accepting it rather than trying to force it away.
Put another way, when you do something for the first time, you have a decision. You can decide that it’s not for you, or you can “double down” on it and practice. As you do more, you become better at it, and you develop it as a skill. I’ll even go so far to say that doing something for the first time is “doubling down” on the thought that “hey, this might be cool”. Of course, not everything is a skill worth developing. This is how habits are formed, and there are too many life-ruining habits to count, not to mention I have several of my own still to break. More on that when I figure out how to replace them, since I’m told this is more effective.