rehearsal of a job interview was flawless, but your opinion isnât what counts. These are situations in which a teacher, coach, or mentor is vital for providing crucial feedback.
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Itâs highly demanding mentally.
Deliberate practice is above all an effort of focus and concentration. That is what makes it âdeliberate,â as distinct from the mindless playing of scales or hitting of tennis balls that most people engage in. Continually seeking exactly those elements of performance that are unsatisfactory and then trying oneâs hardest to make them better places enormous strains on anyoneâs mental abilities.
The work is so great that it seems no one can sustain it for very long. A finding that is remarkably consistent across disciplines is that four or five hours a day seems to be the upper limit of deliberate practice, and this is frequently accomplished in sessions lasting no more than an hour to ninety minutes. The best violinists in the Berlin study, for example, practiced about three and a half hours a day, typically in two or three sessions. Many other top-level musicians report four or five hours as their upper limit. Chess champions typically report the same amount of practice. Even elite athletes say the factor that limits their practice time is their ability to sustain concentration.
Nathan Milstein, one of the twentieth centuryâs greatest violinists, was a student of the famous teacher Leopold Auer (the one who pronounced Tchaikovskyâs Violin Concerto unplayable, though he later became a big fan of it). As the story goes, Milstein asked Auer if he was practicing enough. Auer responded, âPractice with your fingers and you need all day. Practice with your mind and you will do as much in one and a half hours.â
What Auer didnât add is that itâs a good thing one and a half hours are enough, because if youâre practicing with your mind, you couldnât possibly keep it up all day.
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It isnât much fun.
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This follows inescapably from the other characteristics of deliberate practice, which could be described as a recipe for not having fun. Doing things we know how to do well is enjoyable, and thatâs exactly the opposite of what deliberate practice demands. Instead of doing what weâre good at, we insistently seek out what weâre not good at. Then we identify the painful, difficult activities that will make us better and do those things over and over. After each repetition, we force ourselves to seeâor get others to tell usâexactly what still isnât right so we can repeat the most painful and difficult parts of what weâve just done. We continue that process until weâre mentally exhausted.
Ericsson and his colleagues stated it clearly in their article: Deliberate practice âis not inherently enjoyable.â
If it seems a bit depressing that the most important thing you can do to improve performance is no fun, take consolation in this fact: It must be so. If the activities that lead to greatness were easy and fun, then everyone would do them and they would not distinguish the best from the rest. The reality that deliberate practice is hard can even be seen as good news. It means that most people wonât do it. So your willingness to do it will distinguish you all the more.
Lessons from Chris Rock
That is a brief initial description of deliberate practice, the series of activities that seems to explain great performance most persuasively. If you work in one of the fields in which the concept of practice is most deeply entrenchedâsports and musicâyouâre probably thinking that Ericsson and his colleagues have explained and elaborated ideas that many people in your world have understood for a long time. But if youâre among the far more numerous people who make a living in business-related fields, youâre probably thinking: This is absolutely nothing like work!
In fact, life at
Â
Itâs highly demanding mentally.
Deliberate practice is above all an effort of focus and concentration. That is what makes it âdeliberate,â as distinct from the mindless playing of scales or hitting of tennis balls that most people engage in. Continually seeking exactly those elements of performance that are unsatisfactory and then trying oneâs hardest to make them better places enormous strains on anyoneâs mental abilities.
The work is so great that it seems no one can sustain it for very long. A finding that is remarkably consistent across disciplines is that four or five hours a day seems to be the upper limit of deliberate practice, and this is frequently accomplished in sessions lasting no more than an hour to ninety minutes. The best violinists in the Berlin study, for example, practiced about three and a half hours a day, typically in two or three sessions. Many other top-level musicians report four or five hours as their upper limit. Chess champions typically report the same amount of practice. Even elite athletes say the factor that limits their practice time is their ability to sustain concentration.
Nathan Milstein, one of the twentieth centuryâs greatest violinists, was a student of the famous teacher Leopold Auer (the one who pronounced Tchaikovskyâs Violin Concerto unplayable, though he later became a big fan of it). As the story goes, Milstein asked Auer if he was practicing enough. Auer responded, âPractice with your fingers and you need all day. Practice with your mind and you will do as much in one and a half hours.â
What Auer didnât add is that itâs a good thing one and a half hours are enough, because if youâre practicing with your mind, you couldnât possibly keep it up all day.
Â
It isnât much fun.
Â
This follows inescapably from the other characteristics of deliberate practice, which could be described as a recipe for not having fun. Doing things we know how to do well is enjoyable, and thatâs exactly the opposite of what deliberate practice demands. Instead of doing what weâre good at, we insistently seek out what weâre not good at. Then we identify the painful, difficult activities that will make us better and do those things over and over. After each repetition, we force ourselves to seeâor get others to tell usâexactly what still isnât right so we can repeat the most painful and difficult parts of what weâve just done. We continue that process until weâre mentally exhausted.
Ericsson and his colleagues stated it clearly in their article: Deliberate practice âis not inherently enjoyable.â
If it seems a bit depressing that the most important thing you can do to improve performance is no fun, take consolation in this fact: It must be so. If the activities that lead to greatness were easy and fun, then everyone would do them and they would not distinguish the best from the rest. The reality that deliberate practice is hard can even be seen as good news. It means that most people wonât do it. So your willingness to do it will distinguish you all the more.
Lessons from Chris Rock
That is a brief initial description of deliberate practice, the series of activities that seems to explain great performance most persuasively. If you work in one of the fields in which the concept of practice is most deeply entrenchedâsports and musicâyouâre probably thinking that Ericsson and his colleagues have explained and elaborated ideas that many people in your world have understood for a long time. But if youâre among the far more numerous people who make a living in business-related fields, youâre probably thinking: This is absolutely nothing like work!
In fact, life at
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