Deliberate Practice - Mental Toughness

How do you get better? You don't practice what you're good at. You don't practice and not note or measure how or what you're getting better. You practice what you're bad at, and measure your progress. That may seem obvious, but how often do we do the same ole same old at practice, just going through the motions and drills without noting how we're getting better?

The best people in any field are those who devote the most hours to what the researchers call "deliberate practice." It's activity that's explicitly intended to improve performance, that reaches for objectives just beyond one's level of competence, provides feedback on results and involves high levels of repetition.

For example: Simply hitting a bucket of balls is not deliberate practice, which is why most golfers don't get better. Hitting an eight-iron 300 times with a goal of leaving the ball within 20 feet of the pin 80 percent of the time, continually observing results and making appropriate adjustments, and doing that for hours every day - that's deliberate practice.

Evidence crosses a remarkable range of fields. In a study of 20-year-old violinists by Ericsson and colleagues, the best group (judged by conservatory teachers) averaged 10,000 hours of deliberate practice over their lives; the next-best averaged 7,500 hours; and the next, 5,000. It's the same story in surgery, insurance sales, and virtually every sport. More deliberate practice equals better performance. Tons of it equals great performance.

Comments

written on 17-Dec-2008

Drpamela [http://thepeakperformanceexpert.com] says:

Thanks for visiting my blog recently. I see we are of the same mind on the power of mental toughness training. Great web-site!

Pamela Enders

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