The Power Of Deliberate Practice And Myth Of Innate Talent

In today's episode of Sunday Letters, I'm discussing the power of deliberate practice and introduce you to the work of Anders Ericsson. Ericsson is a psychologist at Florida State University, studying the psychological nature of expertise and human performance.

In his 1992 paper titled; “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance”, he states that characteristics of expertise believed to reflect innate talent are the result of prolonged intense practice over a minimum of 10 years.

To me that's only the start.

We creatives already know the benefits of the intense, deliberate practice of our work.

However, there are many distractions vying for our attention with which you and I must contend. Without cultivating the ability to shut those distractions out, our work suffers.

Distraction from the deliberate practice of our work ultimately comes from within.

Often it is the result of the fragmented focus of attention. It can be either conscious distraction such as there's something else I need to be doing, or subconscious, such as beliefs and concepts about what constitutes valuable work.

You might hear the voice of your mother or husband telling you that what you are doing will not earn you a crust.

Or, you might hear the words of a maths teacher criticising you for being a dreamer.

Whatever it is, ideas about worth and valuable contribution often keep the creative mind from realising it's real value.

An Eye On The Future

Another reason the quality of our work and realisation of success may suffer is that we have too much of our creative energies focused on the result.

We invest too much in applause and recognition of other people.

Deadlines, the pressure to deliver, feelings of unworthiness, the anticipation of poor reviews and overall fear of adverse outcomes may take over.

The achievement of accolades or the need for financial reward may become first in our minds and thus inevitably influence the creative integrity of our work.

The future result becomes more important than the process and when that happens we encounter problems.

I've written before on the illusion of time and in the paperback version of The Artist's Manifesto I have dedicated an entire chapter to it.

Here's an extract from the chapter;

Most of us in the industrialised western world feel time shortage pressures and responsibility to comply with popular conventions. The lack of time bears down on us heavily and seems to be a socially acceptable tyranny. We discuss the lack of time with others almost wearing it as a badge of honour. It's strange though, we all get this feeling of a lack of time yet we can never really explain it, touch it, see it or feel it. We try to cram in as many activities as possible into our standard sixteen hour waking day. We try to be as productive as we can, to show our peers and family we are capable of delivering, that we can succeed. Within that sphere of thought we anticipate and mostly fear a future that never gets here. And we lament or regret a past we can never revisit.

The Perspective of The Apprentice

When I was 12 or 13, I began working with my Dad.

He'd take me on jobs at the weekend, and during the summer I'd work as a tea boy for the lads on a building site.

When I wasn't making tea and going to the shops, my Dad would put me working with some of the more skilled electricians, the ones he trusted to teach me.

I learned the ins and outs of the trade before I even started as an apprentice.

This early training was to prove a distinct advantage.

In that work, I never held the idea that I was going anywhere important. I was merely doing the job because it interested me.

I never thought; this is shit, get me out of here. At least not until much later on.

In carrying out my duties, I never imagined success of any kind. I was in it and although there were subsequent aspects of the work I disliked, I didn't wish I was somewhere else.

Reflecting back on this time now, as I see myself in my work, I can appreciate how merely being engaged in the work every day for 30 odd years has brought about particular skills.

Watching myself in that work today, I'm not sure how I learned the skills I acquired.

It's interesting to watch how my hands do very technical things pretty much automatically. I honestly cannot say how they were learned.

It seems the skills came about by themselves merely by me being engaged in the work.

Maybe that's how it happens.

I'm grateful for that experience now, even though there was a time much later when I hated the work.

Acquisition of Expert Performance

We shouldn't believe that expert performance is innate, and reserved for an elite few.

Expert performance can and is, commonly carried out by ordinary people the world over and all of us are capable of producing exceptional results in our chosen field.

Bakers, cabinet makers, knife makers, plumbers, painters, writers and computer programmers go to that internal place where they efficiently execute their practice every single day.

The press and media don't celebrate these people, and that's a pity, but they exist no less.

I don't mean to suggest that every one of us performs to that high level we are capable because the truth is that most of us don't.

In the everyday surface reality of our consumerist world mediocre is most common.

To get beyond it seems to require significant effort.

Anders Ericsson suggests that although specific biological characteristics might predispose us to expert performance, experience has a more significant effect on performance than may have been previously believed.

He says that we can acquire expert performance through extended deliberate practice.

But to reach a level of eminence, that which exceeds common knowledge and technique, we must surpass the achievements of those already considered eminent.

Ericsson says that maximal performance in a given field does not necessarily come as a consequence of experience but as a result of a deliberate effort to improve.

I think this is important to consider.

We've all had that feeling we've plateaued, and with that feeling, there can be frustration.

We've no choice in this case but to keep on keeping on with the firm intent to get beyond the plateau, to improve and develop our skills further.

Work, Play & Deliberate Practice

In his paper, Ericson argues that work, play and deliberate practice are distinctly different undertakings and outlines these differences as follows;

He says that work is motivated by external rewards such as pay.

Play is undertaken for the joyful aspect and has no explicit goal.

Finally, he states that deliberate practice is specifically designed to improve the current level of performance.

Ericsson says that deliberate practice consists of highly structured specific tasks, requires effort and is not inherently enjoyable.

I don't agree with this.

I think it is inaccurate to separate activities this way. In many cases, and in my experience, these different activities overlap and often become the same thing.

His idea suggests that deliberate practice is a toil, a necessary but undesirable activity that many of us would ordinarily not undertake.

That's not how I see it.

When I am engaged in a thing entirely, I am in it, and all of these ideas do not come into play for me. I do the thing because I enjoy it even though it can be challenging.

Or maybe it's because it is challenging.

For me, the fact that I have a payment coming at the end of it, (or in fact, it may have been secured at the start) is irrelevant.

Whether I'm getting paid or not only becomes apparent when I'm tuned out of the activity and the truth is more likely that the work, first and foremost, engages me.

On reflection, work, play and deliberate practice are aspects of the same thing.

In Conclusion

Ericsson's paper is chunky.

There's a lot of data and reference to material and research produced by other respected psychologists that is worth digesting.

I've only picked out one aspect that I happen to disagree with, but on the whole, it's a paper that I think you should read if you're interested in this topic.

I find it a very engaging subject, something I may pursue further in my studies.

After 30 years operating in my field of everyday expertise, the one that brings in the bacon that is, I have realised that to develop a high degree of proficiency requires only that I stay focused.

That I dive into the nuts and bolts of the practice and make them more important than anything else.

That I turn up every day and make the thing solely for the sake of it.

Sure, there may be a high-level goal that sits in the background defining our success, whatever that may be for us, but above all, we must stay in the moment of the thing.

Hours spent in deliberate practice with an intent to be continually better, but disconnected from the need to have results a particular way, is essential to developing expertise.

I have come to understand from my experience, which is all I can ever base my assertions on, that to be focused outside of that inevitably produces results less than optimal.

In other words, get into it for the love and engagement of it. Pursue perfection but understand you'll never catch it.

Forget the results.

Make the thing for the sake of it without the need for applause or recognition just like you'll read in the chapter of The Artist's Manifesto titled; Purposeful Accident.

Do this, and everything will work itself out.