Deliberate Practice

“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is (deliberate) practice.”_Vladimir Horowitz

Practice births mastery.

I have learned that there is a science behind mastery and acquisition of skills; it is a concept known in the world of peak performance as deliberate practice.

For starter, let’s talk about what the concept entails? 

Basically, deliberate practice (or methodical practice) is an art of doing something conscientiously and systematically for the purpose of getting better. 

It’s the tool that we need to become proficient at any skill, no matter the level of our innate talent as a Swedish psychologist, K. Anders Ericsson explains to us on the function of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expertise. 

He makes clear in the following sentence that the technique of deliberate practice is the ultimate difference maker in the acquisition of real skill.

His exact words go as follows: “The differences between expert performers and normal adults are not immutable, that is, due to genetically prescribed talent. Instead, these differences reflect a life-long period of deliberate effort to improve performance.”

With the good news that mastery is not just a gift endowed only to prodigies, we need to realize that deliberate practice is not what we do in just a dozen of times to achieve excellence, rather; it is what we do again and again without end.

However, to be clear, deliberate practice is not the same with rote learning or mindless repetitions; it’s all about conscientious rehearsals that actually lead to real improvements. 

You see, experts are not experts because of their superhuman abilities; experts are experts because they are committed to relentless practice to improve their skills and knowledge.  

That is to say, mastery is less about what we are gifted with at birth.  It's more about how committed we’re to keep getting better at our craft. 

Now, let’s get clearer on how you can make the most of your own practice sessions.

Three Critical Success Factors of Deliberate Practice

We are going to extract three essential factors of Deliberate Practice from Malcolm Gladwell, the author of the bestselling book, ‘Outliers: The Story of Success.’

He highlighted these three factors in the following single sentence:

“Practice must be focused, determined and in an environment where there’s feedback.”

As you can see, the first factor means that each practice must be narrowed to down to a specific element of the skill in view. Since we can’t master everything at once; we therefore need to home in on a specific target, one step at a time.

The second critical factor of deliberate practice means we must be determined to put in the work regularly until we achieve our focused objectives; we can’t dabble our way to mastery. Excellence demands commitment.

And lastly, the third indispensable factor of skill acquisition is that there must be feedbacks on every session to accurate assess the effectiveness of our practice.  

Certainly, feedbacks are important. Without them; we may never make significant improvements toward the class of excellence.

Furthermore, to maximize our potential through the tool of deliberate practice, we need to keep challenging ourselves by improving on our strengths and devising means to address any area of fundamental weakness in our learning. 

Incidentally, apart from the direct gains in expertise that we will obtain with deliberate practice, there’s an amazing windfall. As our skills improve, we experience a quantum increase in confidence and self-esteem: a wonderful byproduct of deliberate practice.

Finally, realize that the most important difference between top performers and lowly amateurs is nothing but a good volume of deliberate practice.

Making a Lasting Change Happen

“Be the person with embarrassing goals and impressive results instead of one of the many people with impressive goals and embarrassing results.”_ Stephen Guise

For many years, I struggled to wake up early because I didn’t have an idiot-proof strategy that would ensure performance, no matter what. 

But today, I am proud to say I am a bona fide early-riser, thanks to the idea of simplicity and tiny steps.

And I am using the same small idea to make other significant changes in my life.

When we know the right strategies to adopt, lasting change is not so hard.

From personal experience, I have realized that the secret to making a lasting change happen lies in the power of baby steps, which many of us tend to dismiss.

Make no mistake about it: baby steps are not trivial; they are powerful.

In fact, baby steps are so powerful that we can achieve anything through their application if we are willing to imbibe the relentless propensity of toddlers in our pursuit. 

Since baby steps induce prompt action, they are the key to making things happen in the world of results. This is especially true when it comes to the formation of good habits; mini steps make our desired behaviour a lot easier to establish into a habit. 

So, whether we want learn a new skill, do a new thing or make a great change, the secret of success lies in making a start in a very small way as Stephen Guise, the author of “Mini Habits: Smaller Habits, Bigger Results” put it: “One small step + desired behavior = high probability of further steps.”

You see, the trick of this strategy is that we are minimizing the initial investment of time and energy to lay a firm foundation that our eventual success will be built upon.

Since the initial step is incredibly small, it is very easy to get it locked into our day. 

Then, over time, those baby steps will eventually become a part of our life.

On the other hand, huge leaps usually end up not being a part of our life at all because they take a lot of effort to integrate. 

Interestingly, baby steps strategy can be applied in all areas of our lives. We only need to decide where we want to change and make each step incredibly small, especially at the start.

Finally: know that baby steps are the key to success at almost anything in life; every accomplishment is an aggregation of tiny steps. 

In the words of a transformational leader, Marci Shimoff: “To make the quickest progress, you don't have to take huge leaps. You just have to take baby steps—and keep on taking them. 

In Japan, they call this approach kaizen, which literally translates as 'continual improvement.' Using kaizen, great and lasting success is achieved through small, consistent steps. 

It turns out that slow and steady is the best way to overcome your resistance to change.”

‘No’ is a Powerful Productivity Strategy

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”_Hans Hofmann

A few years ago, I read a short but interesting book entitled; ‘Eat that Frog,’ written by an American productivity strategist, Brian Tracy.

At the beginning of the book, Brian writes about his extensive research on time management, maximum efficiency and personal effectiveness for more three decades. 

With that wealth of knowledge and experience, he concluded that to get control of our time and life, we don’t have to work too hard, we only need to change ‘the way we deal with the never-ending river of responsibilities that flow over us each day.’ 

He said we would get control of our life and ‘activities only to the degree that we stop doing some things and start spending more time on the few activities that can really make a difference.’

In this direction, the author of ‘Greatness Guide’ Robin Sharma puts the same concept across to his inner circle in the following powerful words: 

“Focus. Focus. Focus on your burning priorities.

Say no to everything else; life is short.

You only get one shot at great.”

As we can see, the true experts of peak performance have all realized the special importance of the negative-seeming word ‘NO’ when it comes to getting significant, positive things done. 

Evidently, no matter how many efficiency tips we aggressively master, we can never get everything done in any given day. 

Why? 

Simply because of a simple truth; there will always be more to do than we can ever do in any 24-hour day.

Whether the period is a day, a week, a year, and even a lifetime, we can’t ever get everything completely done but we can intentionally get really important things done.

So in the face of that undeniable truth: the way out is to say ‘no’ to things of little or no significance so we can conserve time and energy for things of true significance.

In the words of an American author, Scott Belsky: “It is only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that really matter.”

Though saying no to distractions can be hard, yet it is an art that will improve with practice. And, once we see the benefits of deliberate prioritization— by elimination— in our work and lives, we will never go back to the way of frantic busyness again.

Greg Mckeown expressed the same idea in his book, ‘Essentialism.’ Below is relevant quote on the subject at hand from his wonderful bestseller. He writes:

“Only once you give yourself the permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone, can you make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter.”

In finality, never forget that: ‘No’ is one of the only high performance tools you will ever need to get maximum results in life with minimum use of your time and energy. 

So instead of surrendering your agency to the urgency of everything, set your own priorities and lead—by choosing to jettison anything that stands in your way.

How to Help Out in a Crisis

“In every artist there is a touch of audacity without which no talent is conceivable.”_Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In a few years back—2016, to be precise—the revolutionary founder and CEO of the ultra-modern electric company (Tesla), Elon Musk enhanced his reputation as one of the true heroes of our time.

Heroes are said to emerge in a crisis. And that is true. But this time around, the crisis didn’t affect just a few persons; it affected almost two million people: the inhabitants of South Australia.

The country experienced a huge storm with devastating tornadoes which brought down key infrastructures of energy, electricity and power. And the aftermath resulted in almost total blackout of the whole South Australia.

To cut the long story shut, the country had a very serious problem to deal with, and she dealt with it awesomely.

As it turned out, South Australia dealt with it awesomely only because she had the help of white knight in formidable armour: Elon Musk was the one who saved the day in a pretty remarkable way.

Though many of us would prefer to flee from problems of any kind but very few people would rather think creatively on how to upturn such problems into an opportunity for service.  Elon Musk is one of those few.

To help out, Elon Musk made an offer to the South Australian government that is both ambitious and daring. He made a business deal out of the crisis by taking full responsibility for restoring the power grid in just 100 days.

In his own words, he wrote: “Tesla will get the system installed and working 100 days from contract signature OR IT IS FREE.”

Think about the last part of the sentence to really understand the confidence of the man. He placed a binding condition on himself to either deliver as promised or forfeit the sum of N50m dollars. Wow! 

And as you would expect, once the contract was signed, the whole world started counting from day one to see if Musk had bitten more than he could chew, this time around.

Alas, the iron man, Elon Musk not only won over his self-imposed challenge but he succeeded in a pretty remarkable way: he delivered on his promise forty-days ahead of schedule. Impressive!

And it was such a great success that didn’t just strengthened Tesla reputation; it really offered exceptional value to the people Australia.

The next part of this article is where we get to learn the secret power of the gallant man on a white horse.

Be Audacious in Your Preparation

“If the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of will, he will reach them in spite of all obstacles.”_Carl von Clausewitz 

After reading that remarkable story, I paused to reflect on what could be his secret.

What gave him the sheer confidence to make such a bold offer?

And how was he able to meet up in almost half the time?

And how can we strengthen our character so we can be a little more like him in striving to fulfill the big promises we make to others and ourselves?

In search of answers, I read more on ‘our knight’. And it turned out that Elon Musk truly knows something about life far above the average person on the street.

Elon Musk revealed the hidden secret of his blatant audacity in the following words:

“Work like hell.

I mean you just have to put in 80 to 100 hour weeks every week; this improves the odds of success.

If other people are putting in 40 hour work weeks and you’re putting in 100 hour work weeks, then even if you’re doing the same thing.

You know that you will achieve in 4 months what it takes them a year to achieve.”

I think this quote says a lot on why he had the confidence to put himself in a tight corner, beforehand. It also says a lot on how he could cut his execution time into almost half.

You see, beneath his audacity to dream and aspire big is his audacity to act massively. 

You and I need to understand that our big promises mean nothing, if we are unwilling to correspondingly commit big and make amazing things happen. 

Arguably, the two qualities of men of confidence, which may portray a touch of wonder in the eye of an average person, are their sheer will and their incredible commitment to relentless action.

Truly Care and Be Genuinely Willing to Serve

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”_Mahatma Ghandi

In this case, Elon Musk’s motivation to big commitment springs not from fame or fortune but from his deep desire for service. He said: “For me it was never about money, but solving problems for the future of humanity.”

So to thrive out of a crisis, we need to truly care about people’s welfare and creating value to serve their greatest needs during such a period.

Finally, we should strive to be audacious in our aspiration to tackle meaningful problems in the society. Above all, we should always strive to matchup our actions with our bold promises. No wonder the former Prime Minister of United Kingdom, Benjamin Disraeli concluded that, “success is the child of audacity.”