10,000 Hours

I’ve been working my way through the book, Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. The author notes that individuals who stand out in their fields, the rock stars (literally or figuratively), are those who have put in 10,000 hours of practice or more. Gladwell approximates 10 years, generally speaking. This is a helpful rule of thumb, it seems. You won’t be comfortable in your role or at the “top of your game” until you put in a massive amount of time perfecting your skill and honing your abilities.

But what kind of practice? Is it the mere doing of the craft that produces excellence? No. The way that Michael Jordan practices is far different than the way that many other very good basketball players do. Michael or Bono, Steve Jobs or a great artist like Glen Keane, seem to have the ability to observe their performance from the outside. These people judge from a more objective view, and are able to take mental notes, all the while making specific recommendations to themselves. Doing a layup wrong 10,000 times doesn’t produce perfect form the 10,001st time. But executing it more observantly and analytically each time likely will.

What is the key to more objective, analytical self-criticism? Ironically, the answer is humility. Though we assume that a worked-up bravado would provide the energizing fuel of self-improvement, the opposite is true. The ability to overcome our failings comes from looking them squarely in the face. It is the proud person who is blind to his own faults, and thus completely unable to address them.

We should be listening to ourselves speak and watching ourselves work from the “outside”–not self-consciously–but with the sort of critical, yet self-deprecating reflection that produces “perfect practice”.