Anders Ericsson, a psychologist who studied excellence and expertise, made a distinction in the way people practice. Some practice naïvely, others deliberately.
I claim to practice hitting golf balls deliberately. But if that were true, I’d have improved.
A player who practices deliberately defines goals, pays attention to technique and results, experiments and gets constant feedback on performance. If the player is not failing 20 percent of the time, she’s probably not challenging herself.
Ericsson, who was a professor at Florida State University, said on average experts spent 10,000 hours reaching their peak. There’s no rule. Averages in different fields vary. But his point was that if you want to be an Olympic athlete or a piano virtuoso you need to practice deliberately for years.
Ericsson’s views have been criticized, and I’m just starting to read about the debate.
Fifty years ago, I began to read some of the ancient Greek thinkers who wrote about arete, which is usually translated “excellence” or “virtue.” It’s what makes a human good. I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to wonder what psychologists had to say.
• Sources: Here are two articles available online that intoduce Ericsson and his work:
K. Anders Ericsson, Michael J. Prietula, and Edward T. Cokely, “The Making of an Expert”; Harvard Business Review, July-August 2007.
https://hbr.org/2007/07/the-making-of-an-expert
Steven Kurutz, “Anders Ericsson, Psycholgist and ‘Expert on Experts,’ Dies at 72”; The New York Times, July 1, 2020.
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