The Importance of Practice

Hey Alums!

You probably heard me mention before the importance of continued practice--my Phase 2ers definitely did.  I spoke to you about a study they did on top musicians and athletes.  The article below is an excerpt from that research, and it's a good thing, I think, to kick off this blog with.  On here, you will find recommended readings and materials for continued practice.  I encourage you to follow along during the break(s) to stay in practice.

Your first exercise: read and annotate the following article.  Write a 3-4 sentence summary.  You can post your summary in the comments for feedback.

The 10,000 Hour Rule

            For almost a generation, psychologists around the world have been engaged in a spirited debate over the question: is there such a thing as innate talent?  The obvious answer is yes.  Only the innately talented hockey player ends up playing at the professional level.  Achievement is talent plus preparation.  The problem with this view is that the closer psychologists look at the careers of the gifted, the smaller the role innate talent seems to play and the bigger the role preparation seems to play.

            In a study done in the early 1990s led by the psychologist K. Anders Ericsson at Berlin’s Academy of Music, they divided the school’s violinists into three groups: the stars (students with the potential to become world-class soloists), the merely “good,” and those who were unlikely to ever play professionally and who intended to be music teachers in the public school system.  All of the violinists were then asked the same question: over the course of your entire career, how many hours have you practiced?  Everyone from all three groups started playing at roughly the same age, around five years old.  In those first few years, everyone practiced roughly the same amount.  But when students were around the age of eight, real differences started to emerge.  The students who would end up the best in their class began to practice more than everyone else until, by the age of twenty, they were practicing well over thirty hours a week.  In fact, by the age of twenty, the elite performers had each totaled ten thousand hours of practice.  By contrast, the merely good students totaled eight thousand hours, and the future music teachers had totaled just over four thousand hours.

            The striking thing about Ericsson’s study is that he and his colleagues couldn’t find any “naturals,” musicians who floated effortlessly to the top while practicing a fraction of the time their peers did.  Nor could they find any “grinds,” people who worked harder than everyone else, yet just didn’t have what it takes to break the top ranks.  Their research suggests that the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works.  That’s it. 

            “The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert—in anything,” writes neurologist Daniel Levitin. “It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.”

            Here is the explanation for what was so puzzling about the rosters of the Czech and Canadian national sports teams.  There was practically no one on those teams born after September 1, which doesn’t seem to make any sense.  But to Ericsson and those who argue against the primacy of talent, that isn’t surprising at all.  That late-born prodigy doesn’t get chosen for the all-star team as an eight-year-old because he’s too small.  So he doesn’t get the extra practice.  And without extra practice, he has no chance at hitting ten thousand hours by the time the professional hockey teams start looking for players.  Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good.  It’s the thing you do that makes you good.

            The other interesting thing about that ten thousand hours, of course, is that it’s an enormous amount of time.  It’s all but impossible to reach that number all by yourself.  In fact, most people can reach that number only if they get into some kind of special program—like a hockey all-star squad—or if they get some kind of extraordinary opportunity that gives them a chance to put in those hours.

Adapted from Malcolm Gladwell’s The Outliers