10,000 hours to Mastery
 

I'm sure most of you have heard this idea--that many successful people are not necessarily more talented than the rest of us, but have put in hours and hours of practice to master their specialty. The idea is it takes about 10,000 hours, or approximately several hours a day for 10 years. (If you haven't, see Malcolm Gladwell's book, Outliers: The Story of Success http://www.amazon.com/Outliers-Story...9868915&sr=8-1).

So, I was wondering--have any of you actually practiced something this long and mastered? Is there anything you'd want to practice for mastery?

I've actually practiced sex for about that long and feel I've mastered it. Now I couldn't care less about it. Wasted my life!

I'm very good at breathing. I don't even think about it when I do it, and I do it very well. Almost no effort. I've been doing it for several hours each day for my entire life.

It's actually 2.7 hours a day, every day for ten years. If you spend 40 hours a week (8*5) then you can be a master in 4.8 years.

So, for me by those metrics I have mastered:
Black and white photography, particularly printing. (20+yr)
Baking (5yr)
Bicycle Mechanic (5yr)
Cabinetmaking (5 yr) There is some overlap as I have been practicing photography since I was 12 and would still spend 4-5 hours a day after work when I had other jobs. When I did photo full time 12-16 hour days were typical.

As you can see, I have a long way to go before I'm at Z

I read about this in Scientific American. It is very important to note what "practice" means. It means working at the very edge of your abilities--continuously "pushing the envelope." As Terry Bozzio said of playing the drums, if you've been playing paradiddles for 20 years, then cranking out paradiddles on a practice pad no longer counts as practice.

You've got to PUSH yourself. Do THAT for 10,000 hours, then you will have achieved something monumental.

Good point - I think that there are lots of people who have driven 10,000 hours and still do it poorly.

OK then I'll downgrade myself to 3/4 masturbaker ;) and semi master cabintmaker, but as for bike mechanics, I think that is a rather small envelope to push so I'm keeping my accreditation there. As for photographic printing, I am still a full on double rainbow master.

How can you be a double-rainbow master at black and white printing? :eyebrow:

I love the life that meme has taken on.

I'll explain it again...

I'll do that to my kids just to test their powers of discernment. After a minute I ask them, "Do you believe me?"

bi-rainbow win!

My first fencing coach used to talk about how many repetitions we needed to make of an action to make our use of it subconscious. Of course if you practice it wrong it takes many thousand more repetitions to fix it.. So don't just practice, practice properly.

Yes, Griff, yes! Don't bother practicing wrong unless you want to learn wrong.

A lot of physical activities involve developing a "muscle memory" of the action. This is done through repetition and the strengthening on the neuromuscular connections associated.

A couple of thoughts on this.

It may take 10,000 hours to master a skill. But don't let that stop you from taking up an instrument or a hobby. You can have fun from day one.

On the other hand, while I have enjoyed playing bass from the beginning, where I want to be at any given point is always a little further down the road.

When I was teaching piano lessons several years ago, I often had parents of young students ask if they could start learning too, or if it was too late. My answer to them was always the same:

"10 years from now, you're going to be 45 no matter what. You can either be 45 and know how to play piano, or you can just be 45."