How to Be the Top 10% No Matter What You Do
90%of people look
for instant formulae to success, not realizing that when it comes to the path
of success, there are no shortcuts. Hard work, a dedicated perseverance towards
a goal and regular skill practice is what would get you there. You may be
intensely talented but to actually reach the peaks, you need to hone that
talent by sheer practice, and by deliberate
practice.
Deliberate
Practice: Identify Your Weaknesses First
The key to
deliberate practice is simple and follows the same pattern, till the time
success is reached. The first step
is to break the overall process down into parts, the second is to identify your
weaknesses, the third is to test new strategies for each section,
and finally the fourth step is to integrate your learning into the overall
process. The fifth step is to repeat!
Most people
look for immediate results based on nothing more than the human process of
natural growth. But for our growth to be deliberate, our practice has to be
equally deliberate too! So the key to how to be successful, is a mastering of
your skill set.
Think about it this way, if you ever started out by following
your heart, and learning a new skill, say dancing – were you able to master it
by merely assuming you would? No, right? You’d have to practice your moves,
consult a teacher, get to know and then work on correcting your mistakes in
theory as well as in practice and then probably do it all over again till you
are able to master the moves, the posture, the expression and finally, the body
language!
How Deliberate
Practice Leads to Great Achievements
Remember that
deliberate practice is not putting in some extra time at work or working 60-80
hours weeks. Deliberate practice is when you focus on just one aspect of your
work and then start to improve upon that – deliberately and repeatedly, no
matter how much time it takes, and that is the most important aspect to how to
be successful. Here are a few examples of deliberate practice that famous, and
successful people have employed to make themselves better at what they do.
Mozart’s 10
Years of Silence
John Hayes, a
cognitive psychology professor at Carnegie Mellon University, wanted to know
that how much practice it took, in terms of time, before you could produce a
masterpiece. So he studied over 500 music pieces composed by 76 different
composers and discovered that it took all at least ten years of solid practice
before they were able to churn out a masterpiece in music – including
Mozart.
Kobe Bryant’s
800 Shoots
A story pretty well known in sports circle is that of Kobe
Bryant’s deliberate practice. As team trainer Robert recalls it after seeing it
firsthand, “Kobe Bryant started his conditioning work around 4:30 am, continued
to run and sprint until 6 am, lifted weights from 6 am to 7 am, and finally
proceeded to make 800 jump shots between 7 am and 11 am. And then Team USA had
practice!” For Kobe, his goal was 800 baskets, the time spent doing it was
immaterial… For Kobe, his route to how to be successful was simple – to keep
practicing.
A Decade of
Practice Under The Masterchef
Jiro Ono is a chef and the owner of an award-winning sushi
restaurant in Tokyo and his technique has been the subject of a documentary
too. Jiro is no ordinary chef for he has dedicated his life to perfecting the
art of making sushi. And he expects the same of his apprentices too if they
want to work with him. In fact, each apprentice must master one tiny part of
the sushi-making process at a time like how to wring a towel, how to use a
knife, how to cut the fish! So much so that one apprentice trained under Jiro
for ten years before being allowed to cook the eggs!
As a professor
of psychology at The Florida State University Anders Ericsson puts it, “the
sole reason you aren’t a virtuoso violinist, or an Olympic athlete, or another
kind of world-class performer, is that you haven’t engaged in a process called
“deliberate practice”.”
Tips To Keep In
Mind For Deliberate Practice
Stay Just A
Little Above Your Abilities
Think about it this way, you may know how to write a good page
or an essay. To go a little above and beyond your current skills, try writing a
short story or even a long-from article. Don’t try to go from 0 to 100 in 60
seconds – deliberate practice is not a race – it’s a journey that makes you
reach your goal, the perfectionist’s way.
Stay Goal Oriented
Before you try to get better at something, you have to know what
it is that you are trying to do. One good way to watch a master or an expert at
work – then you have a goal in mind that this is the level of expertise you too
want to reach.
Break It Down
Rome, as they say, wasn’t built in a day – and neither will your
mastery in a skill. Whenever you attempt something new or even try to get
better at what you already “know” – break it down into smaller parts. Attempt
it part by part and master the basics before you attempt the more convoluted
parts.
Find A Good Teacher
We cannot be objective about ourselves so if we want to improve
ourselves, we need a teacher, guide or friend who can point out our flaws, or
missing gaps so that we can improve everywhere we lack. Get someone, be it your
teacher or mentor to keep giving you feedback and remember to take criticism
constructively. This is very important in you search in how to be successful.
Remember that if you truly want to better yourself and reach
100% proficiency in something, you have to keep trying and keep practicing
without bothering about the time or the effort spent. And you have to be
patient and persevering about it if you do want to rise above the average and
truly master what you so desire to!
Rima
Pundir
http://www.lifehack.org/606984/how-to-be-successful-no-matter-what-you-do?ref=mail&mtype=newsletter_tier_2&mid=20170630&uid=687414&hash=707e797f7e757e6d794c856d747b7b3a6f7b79&action=click
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