It's a very simple formula. Simple, but not easy.
To gain skills, be it playing a musical instrument, sports, stand-up comedy, acting, martial arts, math, languages, computer programming, public speaking, video editing, or even entrepreneurship, there is a very simple formula if you want to get better at any skill:
1) Practice a lot
2) Put in a lot of conscious effort to what you're practicing
The first point, you've heard before. The "magic number" of 10,000 hours has been thrown around as the minimum needed to master a skill. While it's been argued that this magic number is more or less legit, the point is, to get somewhat good at a skill, you need to have a lot of repetitions. Without the practice, you won't get better.
What's more important though is the second point. You can "practice" something for 16 hours a day. If you are not consciously making the effort to practice whatever you're doing without trying to do it correctly, you're wasting your time. By practicing something without effort or without thinking for long periods of time, you'll just end up making yourself worse at that skill and develop bad habits. Instead, you need to go through the correct progressions, acknowledge that you made mistakes during practice and learn how to avoid them in the future.
Really you're just trying to find ways to be better than you were since the last time you practiced.
That's it. No special shortcuts, no simple hacks. Just put in time and conscious effort.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Share your thoughts.