{"id":1946,"date":"2015-09-06T09:15:56","date_gmt":"2015-09-06T14:15:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/?p=1946"},"modified":"2015-08-26T00:57:54","modified_gmt":"2015-08-26T05:57:54","slug":"what-is-deliberate-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/what-is-deliberate-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is Deliberate Practice?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Deliberate
Deliberate Practice is discipline of Organizational Excellence<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the book Talent is Overrated<\/em>, Fortune Magazine <\/em>editor, Geoff Colvin highlights recent studies that show that greatness can be developed by any man, in any field, through the process of deliberate practice. \u00a0How does one practice deliberately? \u00a0Colvin proposes five elements that allow a man to practice deliberately and thus achieve greatness.<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0Deliberate practice is an activity designed specifically to improve performance, often with a teacher\u2019s help.<\/strong> \u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Most people practice by mindlessly repeating an activity over and over without any clear goal of what they want to accomplish. \u00a0For example, let\u2019s say a man wants to improve his golf game. \u00a0If he\u2019s like most men, he\u2019ll just go to the driving range and hit a couple of buckets of balls without thinking much about specific ways he can improve his swing. \u00a0300 balls later, this man hasn\u2019t improved at all. \u00a0In fact, he may have gotten worse.<\/p>\n

Deliberate practice, on the other hand, is designed with clear objectives and goals. \u00a0When top performers practice, they break down their skill into sharply defined elements. \u00a0After breaking down a skill into parts, a top performer will work intently on the element they \u00a0need to improve most. \u00a0During the entire practice, they focus solely on that one aspect.<\/p>\n

Take the golfing example again. \u00a0Instead of just going to the driving range to mindlessly hit golf balls, break down your golf swing into different elements \u2013 body alignment, club-face alignment, grip, back swing, down swing, etc. \u00a0After breaking down your golf swing \u00a0\u00a0into specific parts, go to the range and spend an hour focusing on just one of those elements. \u00a0Keep working on that one element until you\u2019ve made improvement, then move \u00a0on to the next one.<\/p>\n

Carrying out practice sessions in this deliberate fashion is a skill that takes time to develop. That\u2019s why having a teacher help you design your practice sessions can be invaluable. \u00a0They have the knowledge and expertise to break your skill down into specific elements. Teachers can also see you in ways you can\u2019t see yourself and can direct you to focus on the elements that you need to work on most.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, many men have the tendency to think they\u2019ve outgrown the need for teachers or coaches. \u00a0We think it\u2019s a sign of weakness to ask for help. But asking for help will only make you stronger and better. \u00a0There\u2019s a reason the best golfers in the world continue to have coaches and the most successful businessmen seek the advice of mentors\u00a0<\/sup>throughout their career. They understand the power of an outside eye and opinion in their personal growth. Don\u2019t let your manly pride get in the way of your success. \u00a0Stay humble and hungry.<\/p>\n

2. The practice activity can be regularly repeated.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The world\u2019s top performers spend years of their lives practicing. \u00a0Ted Williams, the greatest hitter in baseball history, would practice hitting balls until his hands bled. \u00a0Basketball legend Pistol Pete Maravich would go into the gym on Saturday mornings and practice shooting from a specific spot on the court until the gym closed at night. To be the best, you have to put in the time. In fact, if you want to become an expert in your field, you\u2019ll need to put in at least 10,000 hours or 10 years of practice first.<\/p>\n

In Malcolm Gladwell\u2019s book, Outliers<\/em>, Gladwell describes a psychology experiment done in the 1990s to see what created world class musicians. \u00a0Psychologist Anders Ericsson went to Berlin\u2019s Academy of Music and divided the school into three groups: the stars, the \u201cgood\u201d performers, and those who were unlikely to ever play professionally and would probably become music teachers. They were all asked the same question: \u201cOver the course of the years, ever since you picked up a violin, how many hours have you practiced?\u201d<\/p>\n

All the violinists had started playing at around age five, and they all played about two or three hours a week during their first few years. \u00a0However, around the age of eight, an important difference began to emerge in the amount of hours they each practiced. \u00a0By age 20, the stars in the group had all totaled 10,000 hours of practice over the course of their lives; the \u201cgood\u201d students had totaled 8,000 hours, and the future music teachers just over 4,000 hours.<\/p>\n

Nobel Prize winning psychologist Herbert Simon and William Chase found similar results in their study of world-class chess players. \u00a0They found that no one seemed to reach the top ranks of chess without at least 10 years of intensive study and practice. \u00a0The \u201cten-year rule\u201d cuts across disciplines, too. \u00a0Top musicians, athletes, scientists and authors don\u2019t reach the top until after they\u2019ve put in around ten years of work and practice.<\/p>\n

There are no short cuts to success. \u00a0If you want to be the best man you can be, you\u2019ll have to commit yourself to years of repeated practice.<\/p>\n

3. The practice activity provides feedback on a continual basis.
\n<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Constant feedback\u00a0 is crucial for improvement. \u00a0You have to see the results of your efforts to evaluate if the \u00a0way you\u2019re doing things is working or if you need to change things up to improve. \u00a0Moreover, without feedback during practice you\u2019re more likely to lose the motivation to \u00a0keep at it. \u00a0During your practice sessions, constantly stop and look for feedback. \u00a0With \u00a0some activities, getting feedback is easy. \u00a0For example, if you\u2019re practicing your jump \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0shot for basketball, if the ball goes through the net every shot, you know you\u2019re on the \u00a0right track. \u00a0If you brick it every shot, that\u2019s feedback that you need to change things up.<\/p>\n

You might have a more difficult time getting feedback for activities that require a subjective evaluation. Music, speaking, and job interviewing are examples of this type of activity. For activities like these it\u2019s a good idea to get a third party\u2019s opinion or a mentor\u2019s input.<\/p>\n

4. Deliberate practice is highly demanding mentally, whether it\u2019s purely physical or mental.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

This factor separates deliberate practice from mindless practice. \u00a0When you\u2019re practicing deliberately, you\u2019re focusing and concentrating so much on your performance that you\u2019re mentally exhausted after your practice session. \u00a0Deliberate practice is so demanding mentally that studies show that \u201cfour or five hours a day is the upper limit of deliberate practice, and this is frequently accomplished in sessions lasting no longer than an hour to ninety minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, top performers who practice deliberately report that they require more sleep than their less talented colleagues. \u00a0In the Berlin Academy of Music study mentioned above, psychologist Anders Ericsson looked at the three groups of performers–the stars, good performers, and music teacher group- and found that, on average, those in the top two groups slept 8.6 hours a day–nearly an hour longer than those in the music teacher group, who slept an average of 7.8 hours. \u00a0The top groups slept more at night and took more naps during the day than the bottom group. \u00a0According to Ericsson, the study suggests that top performers work more intensely than the rest of us but also need more time to mentally recover.<\/p>\n

Thus, a good way to gauge if your practice is hitting the deliberate practice zone is to ask yourself how you feel after a practice session. If you feel absolutely bushed after just an hour, chances are you practiced deliberately.<\/p>\n

5. Deliberate practice isn\u2019t much fun.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Most people don\u2019t enjoy doing activities that they\u2019re not good at. \u00a0It\u2019s no fun to fail over and over again and receive criticism on how you can improve. \u00a0No one likes to be humbled like that. \u00a0We\u2019d rather do stuff at which we excel because succeeding is enjoyable, and it strokes our egos. \u00a0Yet deliberate practice is specifically designed to focus on things you suck at and requires you to practice those skills over and over again until you\u2019re mentally exhausted. \u00a0What a buzz kill.<\/p>\n

But according to Dr. Ericsson, in order to practice deliberately, practice sessions have to feel like drudgery. \u00a0The ability and willingness to slog through this \u201cdead work \u201d is what separates great men from the mediocre. \u00a0My high school football coach used to tell us: \u201cIf football was easy, then everybody would play.\u201d \u00a0The same goes with deliberate practice. \u00a0If it were fun and easy, then everyone would do it and be great at whatever they tried. \u00a0But deliberate practice isn\u2019t fun, which is why we live in a world with only a few great men and hundreds of millions of men who simply wish<\/em> they could be great.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get the wrong idea. \u00a0These studies don\u2019t say that just because you spend a lot of time deliberately practicing a skill, you\u2019ll become a master at everything you do. \u00a0If you\u2019re 4\u20195\u2033, no amount of practice will allow you to slam dunk like Michael Jordan. \u00a0What these studies do suggest is that we\u2019re not as limited by our natural talents as we often think we are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the book Talent is Overrated, Fortune Magazine editor, Geoff Colvin highlights recent studies that show that greatness can be developed by any man, in any field, through the process of deliberate practice. \u00a0How does one practice deliberately? \u00a0Colvin proposes five elements that allow a man to practice deliberately and thus achieve greatness. 1.\u00a0Deliberate practice… What Is Deliberate Practice?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":1947,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[408,85],"tags":[945,522],"class_list":["post-1946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-management-leadership","category-organization","tag-deliberate-practice","tag-organizational-excellence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1946"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1950,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1946\/revisions\/1950"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}