Mastering Deliberate Practice for What You do Best: Part 2
Mastery is Achieved through Deliberate Practice
Let’s continue our discussion on mastering deliberate practice. The word mastery is thrown around as a part of the vernacular. What is mastery and what does it mean to pursue mastery? You may hear stories of someone nearly winning a race. With this in mind, to go from the near win to success of winning, you need to master what it takes to achieve what you need to win. In doing so, you need to require yourself to be deliberate in practicing your skills and talent.
“Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.” ~ Malcolm Gladwell
Exactly how do you apply deliberate practice to improve your skills and talents requires more from you than just repeating the same things over and over again. In order to master your skills, you need specific habits you must work on daily. Habits are difficult to get into a routine of, yet once you start them, you need to do them on a constant basis.
Empower Your Mind Anywhere, Anytime
“Mastery is a mindset: It requires the capacity to see your abilities not as finite, but as infinitely improvable.” ~ Sonya Looney
Mastery is thus achieved through repeated cycles of focused practice. To achieve expertise in any field of study usually requires many of hours of deliberate practice. Mastery is an endless path of improvement.
Explore how deliberate practice allows you to refine your skills, overcome limitations, and achieve exceptional results. By breaking down the components of deliberate practice and providing practical tips, you can empower yourself to embrace intentional effort as a means of reaching your full potential.
Practice is the repetition of an action with the goal to improve. Too many people constantly practice the repetition but don’t improve because of the way they practice. How often do you say "wow, that person is talented" when thinking about your own work? In order to get the ‘wows’, you need to improve your thinking and practice specifically focused skills. If you are willing to put in the effort and concentrated work, this can happen for you.
Overcome Limitations by Using Deliberate Practice
“By stretching yourself beyond your perceived level of confidence you accelerate your development of competence.” ~ Michael J. Gelb
Understanding your limitations in relation to specific skills and talents, you can strengthen them by mastering the use of deliberate practice. Take actions with intention. Be proactive in your planning to anticipate and address the difficulties or challenges you encounter before they arise. Have regular routines to practice so you know what you are working on improving. It is important to know what you are doing and why.
“Success is not just about how much talent you have, but how effectively you are able to apply that talent through deliberate practice.” ~ Karl Anders Ericsson
Mastery Steps
“Only new actions will bring different results.” ~ Billy Cox
What deliberate steps have you taken recently to improve or master your skills? To improve at anything, you must push yourself beyond your comfort zone. How do you deliberately practice a skill? Some believe that to be good at what you do, you need to practice repeating what you do best. Others believe to improve you need to challenge yourself to get greater results. The steps are simple once you get into a daily routine to using them.
Step One: Know the Key Components of the Skill
Identify the specific skills you want to improve on. Begin by setting specific and measurable goals for each practice session.
Step Two: Break Down Components
Break down complex tasks into smaller parts so that you can concentrate on mastering each skill before moving on to the next one. Consistent and focused practice is the cornerstone of mastering a skill. Set aside dedicated time for consistent practice sessions. Identify subskills that build on each other in order to support competent performance. Develop those as separate subskills. Gradually add new skills and increase difficulty.
Step Three: Embrace Discomfort
Stepping outside of your comfort zone requires you to take calculated risks. Focus on continuous improvement. Taking action not only requires energy and focus. Give each part your full attention. Motivation is mastery's fuel. To maintain your motivation to change you need to get out of your comfort zone. Don’t put yourself down if you don’t improve during any of your practice sessions. Be optimistic and keep working forward.
Step Four: Seek Feedback Regularly
Getting immediate feedback is crucial in deliberate practice, especially when focusing on quality over quantity. Constructive honest feedback from others to gain valuable insights into your progress.
Practice in Your Brain
Using your visual imagery allows you to incorporate what you want or need to do to improve. Improving can be reinforced just by imagining it. Golfers imagine their holes in one. Musicians imagine performing perfectly. Managers imagine having successful teamwork based on what they provide for their teams. Leaders imagine presenting their perfect speech. Of course, this accompanies practice rather than replacing it.
Stretching Beyond Your Limits
“The hallmark of successful people is that they are always stretching themselves to learn new things.” ~ Carol S. Dweck
By stretching yourself, you stretch your thinking beyond the impossible for the possible. This allows you to find new things you can use and understand about yourself and how you can reach and achieve the success you want.
“The only way to define your limits is by going beyond them.” ~ Arthur C. Clarke
Are you tired of feeling like you’re not making progress in your skill development? It’s time to switch to deliberate practice. You can implement continuous improvement by regularly soliciting feedback, using it to identify areas for improvement and developing action plans.
“Unless you’re continually improving your skills, you’re quickly becoming irrelevant.” ~ Stephen R. Covey
Now that we have completed the basics of using Deliberate Practice to Master Your Performance, you are ready to start the process. Write down the steps, calendar time for this, and master those skills you want to master to move your life and career forward. You can do it!