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Researcher Anders Ericsson calls the kind of practice that develops experts “purposeful, deliberate practice.” This special kind of practice creates the chunks of knowledge and skills that build the broad array of mental representations that set an expert apart from a non-expert. It should come as no surprise that experts spend more time developing their crafts.
Ericsson and his colleagues found that it takes about 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert. This rule of thumb has applied to superstar musicians, mathematicians, athletes, as well as experts in many other professions. Although the 10,000-hour rule has been debated—for example, some researchers argue that the number of hours needed to become an expert differs based on the knowledge and skills required in different areas such as games, sports, music, and professions—researchers generally agree that people who become experts practice much more often than those who don’t.
However, people with world-class skills don’t just practice harder and longer than others to learn their respective crafts; they also practice better, in a more focused and strategic way. It’s the quality as well as the quantity of hours of practice and experience that turns someone into an expert.
You will learn five steps for becoming an expert through purposeful, deliberate practice. These steps include:
- Identifying your purpose
- Creating a mental representation of excellence
- Developing your step-by-step strategy
- Practising with precision and push
- Measuring your progress
(Excerpt is from “The Science of Success: What Researchers Know that You Should Know” by Paula J. Caproni).
Identify Your Purpose
To commit to the rigours of intensive practice, you need to sincerely believe that your long-term goal is worth the time, toil and sacrifice it requires. Although most people stop practising once the practice gets too complicated or is no longer enjoyable, you have to continue to practice to develop outstanding talent. People who succeed at this do so because they are determined to succeed at something they care about, not because the practice is easy or enjoyable. You are more likely to stay committed to your goals if you can connect them to making a positive difference in the world, such as contributing to the well-being of others. In order for your goals to inspire you to stay the course, they need to be achievable and aligned with your values and instil in you a sense of pride. You also need to be able to see your progress toward the greater purpose.
“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Create a Mental Representation of Excellence
To become an expert, you need to have a mental representation in your mind about what expertise looks like. To do this, watch expert in action in your desired area of expertise and figure out what they do better than novice or average performers. What makes them special? What knowledge and skills do they have that make them stand out from others, and how did they develop these? And what degrees, certificates, and awards do they have?
When the Author, Paula J Caproni, was starting out teaching, she sat in on the classes of some of the best teachers at the business school. She paid attention to the techniques they used to engage the students and their strategies to organize their materials. She went to workshops and read books about how to become a teacher who can inspire others.
Develop Your Step-by-Step Strategy
Work backwards from your long-term goals and identify the specific knowledge, skills, experiences, and credentials you will need. Assess the knowledge, skills, experiences, and credentials you already have. Once you’ve identified the gap between what you currently have and what you need, create your step-by-step strategy. This involves two steps. First, you’ll need to break your goals down into smaller chunks of knowledge and skills because chunking allows you to turn an ambitious goal into a set of achievable steps. What specific knowledge and skills do you need to learn? Second, you’ll need to develop a plan for learning and practising each of these chunks until you master them all. It will be most effective if you begin with the fundamental skills and build from there. Learning each chunk of knowledge and skill on its own may not feel that impactful, but as Ericcson says, “progress comes as a series of baby steps, none very impressive on its own, but they can add up to an incredible journey.”
Practice with Precision and Push
1. Identify a precise area of your performance you want to improve. For example, if you want to improve your communication, you might decide to say “um” and “ah” less often, or you might decide to use more compelling gestures.
2. Give your full attention to the task each time you practice. Ericsson says, “It is better to train at 100 percent effort for less time than at 70 percent effort for a longer period.” Many experts engage in the concentrated practice for only two to five hours each day. In one study, Ericsson asked expert, average, and least accomplished violinists to keep a log of the time they spent practising each week. He found that the violinists said they spent the same amount of time practising, but the most accomplished violinists used their time in a more focused way than the others. The good news is that practising for just two hours each day in a focused way for ten years adds up to 7300 hours of deliberate practice. The better news is that many experts take naps to rejuvenate after their intensive practice.
3. Once you’ve reached a high level of competence in a precise area, push yourself on to the next chunk, even if doing so means that you’ll make more errors. Doing the same kind of practice of the same skill over and over again may feel comfortable, but it will not increase your abilities. Competition skaters, for example, fall more during practice than average skaters because they set more difficult challenges for themselves. Failure is part of the learning process because making mistakes helps people understand what skills they don’t yet have. Ericsson says that most learning happens “at the edge of one’s comfort zone.” Leadership researchers Scott DeRue and Ned Wellman found that the best way to learn leadership is to create optimal challenges. If a challenge is too hard, it can be overwhelming to the point that it is disheartening and nothing can be learned. If the task is too easy, it offers no opportunity for new learning.
4. Get a coach. Experts often have coaches, particularly early in their careers, who help them develop their learning goals and optimal challenges. A coach can motivate you to push yourself harder than you would on your own. Over time, many experts-in-training internalize the ability to develop stretch goals and stay motivated, even without a coach.
Objectively Measure Your Progress
Decide how you will assess whether you’ve achieved optimal performance in a specific area. One way is to create “SMART” goals for every chunk you want to develop. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. SMART goals are small wins that, when taken together, lead to big changes.
Specific means that you’ve identified a clear and unambiguous area of improvement you want to develop. Saying that you want to get healthy wouldn’t be specific. Saying that you want to eat more fruits and vegetables wouldn’t be specific. But saying that you will eat the equivalent of five cups of fruits or vegetables every day would be specific.
Measurable means that you’ve established concrete criteria for assessing when you’ve achieved the standard of quality you want to achieve for each chunk of knowledge or skill you want to develop. Clear quality standards are important because they help you self-correct along the way before bad habits become engraved in and harder to change.
Attainable means that you can realistically achieve progress toward your goal. Remember that optimal challenges are those that aren’t too easy, but they’re not overwhelming to the point that you can’t make any progress toward your goal. Said another way, you don’t want to bite off more than you can chew.
Relevant means that the knowledge and skill you want to master fits with your short and long-term plan to become an expert in your area. It’s easy to go off track and start focusing on developing knowledge and skills that may be interesting but not central to the expertise you need to develop.
Time-bound means that you set clear times that you will spend developing the knowledge or practising the skill, as well as a clear deadline by when you expect to have mastered the specific goal.
