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Become Better At Anything Through Deliberate Practice
Deliberate practice is the path to getting better results in any field. It’s a specific method that makes the difference between an ordinary performance and an outstanding achievement. These are some guidelines for engaging in deliberate practice and specific applications for how to use it in your daily life.
General Guidelines for Deliberate Practice
- Be patient. A large body of research confirms that it takes about ten years before most people develop into a virtuoso, whether you want to be a pianist or a titan of industry. Plus, that ten year figure seems to be a minimum rather than an average.
- Aim for consistency. As you would expect, you must practice regularly. Just like kids forget their course work during summer vacation, you may squander your efforts if you take prolonged breaks.
- Understand the learning curve. It’s natural to enjoy dramatic results when you first take up anything new. Then, you hit a plateau where you need to become more strategic if you want to keep advancing.
- Hone in on specific areas. Identify the areas where you want to improve and focus your practice there. For example, you may have acquired an extensive vocabulary in French but need to spend time listening to native speakers to improve your pronunciation.
- Be prepared for lots of repetition. The willingness to endure repetitive drills is what distinguishes the best performers. Keep in mind that the most productive methods may not feel like a lot of fun.
- Keep your sessions relatively brief. Researchers have found that three to five hours a day is the absolute maximum for most people, spread over individual sessions of ninety minutes or less. Pace yourself according to the amount of time during which you can maintain an intense level of concentration.
- Set specific goals. Use a blend of goals related to both outcomes and the process itself. The important thing is to approach your usual tasks with the mindset of becoming better at them.
- Expand your mental model. Try to identify all the factors that go into your chosen experience. Keep adding to the list and experimenting with new combinations. For example, keep a journal so you can spot what conditions support or sabotage your healthy diet.
- Seek feedback. Outside observers may spot weaknesses that you fail to see. Partner up with a more experienced friend or hire a coach.
- Evaluate your progress. Check in regularly to review how you’re doing. Ask yourself what is going well and where you need to make changes.
Specific Applications for Deliberate Practice in Your Daily Life
- Enhance your exercise routine. Sports are one field where deliberate practice has been studied extensively. You can use the same techniques as professional athletes to get the most out of your yoga classes.
- Get creative. Music and other arts are also areas where practice obviously matters. You may want to resume the piano lessons you started as a child.
- Move ahead in your career. Any occupation can be broken down into tasks where you can make continual improvements. Brush up on your financial management skills or take a more systematic approach to making successful sales calls.
- Enrich your relationships. Even interpersonal relationships have many aspects that respond to practice. Experiment with delivering constructive criticism more tactfully with your family and co-workers.
Deliberate practice requires time and hard work, but anyone can reap the benefits, regardless of whether you think you have any special innate talent for the activities you care about most. Focus on the areas where you want to improve and be patient. Over the long term, diligent repetition and targeted feedback will pay off.
You always talk about very specific and detailed themes, which is why I rely on your professionalism.
These are great ideas. I always try to have patience. And I try to get creative. It does help!
These guidelines are so spot on! I especially appreciate, “aim for consistency.” I think we all can agree, that if you’re not consistent, you’ll never achieve the desired results.
I like all of these and at any given time am working on at least a couple of them. They are great words to live by.
These are some wonderful ideas! Getting better is always a good thing, in every aspects of our lives!
These tips are something I definitely needed today! I want to change my job and start doing something completely new, so I’ll need to be patient! 🙂
Great advice! I can see how this would be very helpful to constantly push and improve ourselves.
I like reading something related to personal development. These are great practices to consider. You guys are awesome.
These are all great ideas, I try to practice having more patience. Thanks so much for sharing this with all of us!
Thank you for this! I needed to read this today.
Good ideas! I need to be more patient. I’m still learning because I have a toddler at home and patience is a key
Fab tips here. I need to work on enriching my relationships next year. Life is all about relationships.
Love the part about setting specific goals. It’s much easier to get stuff done and make progress when you know exactly what you’re aiming towards. Vague goals often just result in giving up and feeling defeated in my opinion.