Practice Makes Perfect.

Providing your practicing the right way. You are, aren’t you?

I love this adage. “Practice makes perfect.” It sounds logical. We all want to believe that if we work at something enough, we can reach perfection.

Isn’t it supposed to take 10000 hours to become a master of something? I have good news for you. It doesn’t have to be. You can spend that amount of time practicing and still learn very little if you don’t practice the right way.

It’s not how long you spend practicing something. It’s how you practice that makes the most significant impact.

Useless practice

Before we look at effective practice, let’s look at how not to practice.

Let’s say you want to improve your badminton swing. You swing and hit the shuttlecock, and it blasts off into the air. NICE! Your shoulder hurts a little (“It’s okay, my body will adapt”). Your opponent easily deflects shuttlecock because of the predictable flight path (“It’s okay, I didn’t want to win.”) Great! Now repeat that motion again for 9999 more hours, and what do you have?

An extremely sore shoulder, a long losing streak, and a terrible badminton swing.

Even better! Your terrible technique is now ingrained as a permanent habit. This can be applied to any activity. If you practice a technique in the wrong way, then you’re just learning how to be more efficient at f***ing it up.

So, what’s missing from the above story? There are two steps to follow.

Feedback

What you needed was an expert, or at least someone more knowledgeable than you, to helpfully point out that your swing sucks and why. You need them to show you how to improve, so the first thing you should do is seek a great teacher.

A fluent language partner to learn how to be fluent.

A skilled sports player to learn how to be skilled.

A great writer to learn how to be a great writer.

Then you need to listen to what they say and accept their precious feedback. This will show you how to perform better and better.

You can’t find a great teacher?

Then watch the masters at work. Go online and scour the net to find the very best of what it is you are trying to learn and watch them in slow motion.

Watch in close detail how they perform. How they move their feet, how they hold their instrument, how they move when performing at their best. Look out for the subtle things that make them world-class.

You should even study what they ate for breakfast.

The Masters are your mentors; by studying them, you can break apart the process of what makes them great and first understand it, then use it.

And reflection.

Record yourself and compare what you do to what the master does. How does your technique differ from them? A teacher makes this easier. They can tell you what’s wrong, but the responsibility for reflecting is on you.

Let me share the four steps of my medium learning process with you.

Step one — Study a writing course.

The writing course I use is on Coursera. This is where I learn the practical side of writing. The techniques exist and why they work, and the theory behind excellent writing.

Step two — Read excellent writing.

I spend several hours a week reading books and online articles. I save the very best and then deep dive into analyzing the content. I aim to dissect why this writing speaks to me on a higher level, why it excites me or arouses my emotion and interest.

Step three — Write.

I use what I have learned and try to write as well as I can. Sometimes I succeed; often, I probably fail. My practice is guided by my learning from the previous steps giving me new things to try.

Step four — Reflect

I study what I have written and compare it with what I have read and learned. I try to find the faults in my writing. Even better, somebody else points them out to me. Afterward, it’s back to step one, and the cycle continues.

That’s why I won’t be taking part in any 30-day challenge. In my view, this is practice without time for reflection. I don’t want to spend 10000 hours and still have a poor swing.

I hope something here was of value to you!

If you’re looking for more to read please check out Do You Procrastinate Like I Do by Dominic DiFrancesco