It’s often said that you can become an expert in anything by logging ten thousand hours in the subject.  This “10,000 hour rule,” derived from Malcolm Gladwell’s book,  Outliers: The Story of Success however is an over simplification of the information he presented.

What Gladwell said was that you needed ten thousand hours to be a phenom at something, which is beyond expert all the way to freakishly awesome.  By phenom, he was referring to that person whose head and shoulders above everyone else and is good enough to be recognized by one name, like Tiger, Jordan, YoYo Ma, or Venus.

Gladwell studied the lives of extremely successful people to find out how they achieved such heights.  He tells of a study of violin performers in Berlin where  it was determined that elite performers put in more than double the practice hours, in excess of ten thousand, than other performers. While no “naturally gifted” talent emerged, psychologists did find a direct statistical correlation between the amount of hours practiced and achievement.

Bill Gates and Paul Allen dropped out of college in 1975 and founded Microsoft, now a household name.  Prior to starting the company, Gates and Allen had thousands of hours of programming experience as youngsters and teenagers, which was rare for that time when computers weren’t readily available.

5064900391_4293310e2a_oThe Beatles, who seemed to burst onto the music scene in 1964 and sky-rocket to success, had actually been playing together in local clubs for years before.  By the time they became popular, the band had played over one thousand concerts together which is more than most bands play in their whole careers today.

OK, these are rare, long shot examples.  But, guess what?  The great news is that you don’t have to put in anywhere near the same amount of time to become good at something.  In order to be successful at a  hobby, business pursuit, or skill of any kind, it isn’t actually necessary to be THE elite or even an expert.  While you do have to dedicate the time to hone and perfect your craft, thousands of hours are not required.

In The Winner’s Brain: 8 Strategies Great Minds Use to Achieve Success, by Mark Fenske and Jeff Browne, the authors indicate that one key to becoming a winner is to practice a skill until it becomes committed to implicit memory:

…when a task is practiced to the point of being automatic because it’s easier to free up neural resources when you don’t have to waste attentional energy thinking through each of the meticulous steps involved.  Well-automated tasks and thought processes reduce the load on attention and focus by habitually ensuring that the brain relies on implicit memory – implicit in the sense that we don’t have to consciously retrace the steps of our previous experience to complete it.

… this leads us to an essential Winner’s Brain strategy… Practice, practice, practice – until you can perform on autopilot.

While it is unrealistic to think that practice, or anything else for that matter, will lead to perfection, putting hours into a skill shifts your brain into winning mode and stacks the odds of success on your side.

image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/7477245@N05/

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5 Comments

  1. Good analysis of the book Debbie. I’ve heard both sides of this debate – the 10,000 hour rule and the non 10,000 hour rule. lol I don’t think you need to put in that many hours to become good at something – not 10,000 anyways. And practice does get you there. Also, I think enjoying what you’re doing matters. If you’re going to pursue a hobby or skill and enjoy doing it, you might just committ to 10,000 hours if not more. I think how much we enjoy what we’re doing should be factored into becoming an expert.

    Also, it’s not simply doing 10,000 hours – we got to perfect the craft! If everyone did 10,000 hours and could become world-class in it, people would. But there’s the right way or a better or more efficient way to do sports, skills, and talents.

    • Debbie Hampton Reply

      Hey, Vishnu! Good to hear from you. I agree. The enjoyment of something would be an important factor and, seems to me, would make a considerable difference in being committed to implicit memory easier and quicker. When you enjoy something, we probably don’t even realize how much time we’ve put into it. I wonder hour many hours I have spent doing yoga or sitting at this computer!? I should be a phenom by now at both! 🙂

  2. Debbie, That’s fascinating and I loved the example you used like the Beattles and Bill Gates. It’s interesting how it all keys up with free neural resources!

    • Debbie Hampton Reply

      Thanks, Sandra. Yes, that was new information to me about freeing up neural resources. Makes sense. I like that I learn something new with every post I write.

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