Deliberate practice makes perfect: how to become an expert
in anything
The human race is out-doing itself.
We’re faster, smarter, stronger,
more emotionally-intelligent and artistically-gifted than ever before.
Take a look at any profession in
the world today.
From music to maths to track
running, the previously-impossible is being achieved every day.
Where does this continuous, steep
upswing in the standards of excellence come from?
No, there hasn’t been a surge of
extraordinarily talented people being born.
The myths
of mastery
How long does it take
to become a master of your craft?
Is talent something
you’re born with, or something you acquire through learning?
And what do
highly-skilled people do differently from the rest of us mortals?
Researchers have been searching for
answers to these questions for decades. And recently, they made a surprising
discovery.
The crème de la crème — or ‘expert performers’,
as they’re officially known — all have something in
common.
(And it’s not 10,000 hours.)
Debunking
10,000 hours
In Malcolm Gladwell’s 2008
book, Outliers: The Story of Success, he pinpoints 10,000 as the ‘magic
number’ of hours a person needs to devote to their craft to become an expert.
He cites people like Bill Gates and
the Beatles, who famously invested vast amounts of time to sharpening their
skill-set.
His theory is based on the research
of Dr. K. Anders Ericsson, a professor of psychology who has pioneered the
study and science of peak performance.
But Ericsson does not entirely agree with Gladwell’s conclusions. In
fact, he calls them:
“… a popularised but simplistic view of our work …
which suggests that anyone who has accumulated a sufficient number of hours of
practice in a given domain will automatically become an expert and a champion.”
According to Ericsson, becoming an
expert in something isn’t just a matter of clocking up thousands of hours. What
distinguishes a virtuoso violinist or an Olympic athlete from the rest of us
is how they spend these hours.
Enter deliberate practice.
Deliberate practice is
focused, consistent, goal-oriented training. It favours quality over quantity.
It knows not all practice is created equal.
Natural talent is overrated
There’s a common assumption that
talent is something we are, or aren’t, born with.
But Ericsson believes that genetics
play less of a role than we think.
Take Mozart. Almost anyone would
consider him to be a musical genius. But according to Ericsson,
“If you compare the kind of music pieces that Mozart
play at various ages to today’s Suzuki-trained children, he is not exceptional.
If anything, he’s relatively average.”
He claims that Mozart achieved
mastery not due to inherited talent, but because he practiced long and hard
from a very young age.
“The belief that one’s abilities are limited by one’s
genetically prescribed characteristics….manifests itself in all sorts of ‘I
can’t’ or ‘I’m not’ statements.”
So is a conviction that we lack the
necessary talent the only factor holding us back from being the next Steve
Jobs?
Not quite.
There is significant evidence to show that working memory is heritable, and that cognitive
ability as a child plays a role in adult achievement.
But no matter a person’s genetics,
expertise can’t be built without working hard — and smart — over many years.
Why regular practice
isn’t enough
Typically, repeated practice takes
us up to a medium level of success. After an initial spike, progress stalls,
plateaus — then grinds to a halt.
Because when you reach an average
level of competence, your ability stops being a work-in-progress and starts
being a reflex.
That’s why repeating a skill
regularly over many years alone — cooking, driving,
exercising — doesn’t lead to expertise.
You’re maintaining a
skill, not building on it.
And for most areas in our lives, a
baseline level of skill is enough. But if we want to truly excel, we have to
push past this complacency and out of our comfort zone.
People who continually improve
never slump into auto-pilot.
Instead, they keep taking apart the
pieces of their skill and putting them back together to create something better.
Rather than treading water, they
take their practice to the edge of their ability, and then step (or leap)
beyond it.
The five-hour rule
Author and entrepreneur Michael Simmons discovered a common
denominator that ties in with Ericsson’s research.
Simmons refers to this as the ‘five-hour
rule’: one hour, each weekday, devoted to highly-concentrated learning.
And it’s these consistent, intense
bursts of effort that sets them — and other
highly-accomplished people throughout history — apart.
Benjamin Franklin kept
a strict daily schedule and set aside time for focused learning, reflection and
reading. He tracked his progress and set small goals.
Theodore Roosevelt
devoted a couple of hours each day to intense study, a habit he started at
university and continued into his US presidency.
Elon Musk is known for
his deep commitment to learning and self-improvement, and often reads two books
a day.
Sounds a bit more manageable than
the 10,000 hour rule, doesn’t it?
But it’s not always easy.
Deliberate practice
makes perfect
Performing skills you already know
is satisfying — but this won’t enhance your skill level.
So, deliberate practice isn’t just
about continued repetition.
It’s structured. It’s thoughtful.
It’s strategic.
You aren’t just mindlessly
practicing. You’re intensely engaged. You’re teetering on the edge of what you
are and aren’t capable of doing.
It shouldn’t feel comfortable.
Like a rubber band, you’re
constantly stretching yourself to your outer limits. There needs to be constant
pressure and impetus for change.
And if you aren’t clearly moving
forward with one technique, you go back to the drawing board.
In other words, if you achieved
something yesterday, you must do more than achieve it again today.
There’s no standstill.
That’s how growth happens.
Deliberate practice in
4 steps
Developing proficiency in any skill
is not always fun, or even enjoyable.
I’ve learnt this firsthand over
the 12 years (and counting) it took me to build my
company, JotForm.
I’ve been with my product, fed up
with myself and fed up with grappling with yet another issue.
What’s made me hang in is
visualizing where the time I spend developing a new or greater understanding
will take me.
And by listening to my resistance instead of fighting it, I was able to grow JotForm
to almost 4 million users without any outside funding.
Still, to push through these
feelings, day in, day out, you’re going to need to build smart systems to support you.
Here’s how to get the ball rolling.
1. Set small goals
You need to keep your eyes firmly
on the prize to keep up momentum.
That’s why wishy washy goals like ‘getting better’ won’t
be compelling enough to propel you past your current abilities — on their own, at least.
And as I’ve written before, lofty goals will intimidate — and throw you off track.
Small goals are foundation of
deliberate practice. They should take into account your current knowledge and
push your limits, little by little, towards meaningful change.
This means distilling your general,
long-term goal — improvement — into a series of
concrete building blocks.
Long-term goal: become an expert runner
Medium goal: run the 2019 marathon
Small steps to get there: reduce your running time by 5
minutes every week.
Identify main areas for change.
Write them down. Make a checklist. Rooting goals in specificity will encourage
action. Once you have a clear system in place, everything else will slot into
place.
2. Be consistent
Prolonged, sustained effort is
often uncomfortable or frustrating. And that’s the whole point.
Deliberate practice isn’t
necessarily enjoyable: you’ll need to sacrifice short-term pleasure for long-term success.
This dilemma applies to most things
in everyday life. Take me as an example.
When people ask me how I was able
to grow JotForm to a company of 110 employees without any investment, many of
them want me to talk about passion or tell inspiring stories.
The truth is, I’ve never been super
passionate about building forms. I didn’t follow my dreams.
I just showed up and put in the
boring work every single day over the last 12 years while I watched countless
competitors enter & leave our market.
It wasn’t always fun, especially
when you try to build your startup in one of the most competitive industries
around: online forms. Even Google Forms stepped into the ring and remains one
of our toughest competitors.
But it’s pushing through this
frustration that leads to significant improvement. It’s getting on with
it especially when you’re too tired and can’t be bothered.
Deliberate practice is only
effective because of its regularity.
So commit to your hour per day, and
protect it at all costs. Soon, action will become habit and there will be no
decision left to make. That’s where the magic happens.
3. Track
and measure
To progress in any area, you need
to pinpoint your strengths and weaknesses to identify problems and solutions.
How many stories are
you publishing per week?
How many miles are
you running?
Be methodical, and keep track of
your progress everyday.
It’s also crucial to seek out regular feedback: from existing experts and peers
as well as through self-assessment. An honest perspective is essential for
gaining a realistic view of your progress.
Write it down. Record it. Measure
it. Repeat.
4. Recharge
Deliberate practice requires your
full, undivided, 1000% attention. That’s why it can only be sustained for short
periods.
Experts have capped optimal
practice time at one hour per day, three-to-five days a week, with reduced
benefits after two hours.
So keep it short and sweet, however
tempting it might be to push on when you feel like you’re nailing it. Set an
alarm, and be strict on yourself to duck out when the hour is up.
Why? You need to recharge.
Extreme focus is a tough mental
workout, and you’ll only feel its benefits if you give yourself time to
recover. Counteract the intensity of deliberate practice by doing nothing at all.
https://medium.com/swlh/deliberate-practice-makes-perfect-how-to-become-an-expert-in-anything-ec30e0c1314e
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