Practice Makes Perfect

How long do you think it takes to become an expert in something? For example, if you want to become a concert pianist or violinist, how long do you have to practise to reach that level? Well, in his popular book ‘Outliers’, Malcolm Gladwell wrote that it takes approximately 10,000 hours to become an expert in any field. However, newer research and even the original psychologist, Anders Ericsson, whose work Gladwell based his book on, disagree with this number.

‘If you want to get good at something, then the type of practice you do is often more important than how long you practise for’, Rachel Lee, a leading psychologist, told us. ‘All practice is not equal. If you repeat the same tasks over and over, you may see little improvements over time. However, If you focus your practice and practise at a higher level, you can improve faster. This is called deliberate practice.’

Recent research from Case Western Reserve University suggests that if you use ‘deliberate practice’, the results vary between different activities. For example, you can become 26% better in games like chess and 21% better in music, but the figure drops to 18% for sports. So, practice is important, but psychologists believe that there are many other things involved.

The idea that anyone can reach the top of any field if they practise enough is nice. All psychologists agree that practising a skill will make you better, but it is simply not true that practice makes perfect. Better, yes, but unfortunately not perfect.