Debunking the Myth of the 10,000-Hours Rule: What It Actually Takes to Reach Genius-Level Excellence The question of what it takes to excel – to reach genius-level acumen at a chosen endeavor – has occupied psychologists for decades and philosophers for centuries. Groundbreaking research has pointed to grit as a better predictor of success than IQ, while psychologists have admonished against the dangers of slipping into autopilot in the quest for skill improvement. In recent years, one of the most persistent pop-psychology claims has been the myth of the 10,000-hour rule – the idea that this is the amount of time one must invest in practice in order to reach meaningful success in any field. But in Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence (public library), celebrated psychologist and journalist Daniel Goleman, best-known for his influential 1995 book Emotional Intelligence, debunks the 10,000-hour mythology to reveal the more complex truth beneath the popular rule of thumb: The 10,000-hour rule – that this level of practice holds the secret to great success in any field – has become sacrosanct gospel, echoed on websites and recited as litany in high-performance workshops. The problem: its only half true. If you are a duffer at golf, say, and make the same mistakes every time you try a certain swing or putt, 10,000 hours of practicing that error will not improve your game. Youll still be a duffer, albeit an older one. No less an expert than Anders Ericsson, the Florida State University psychologist whose research on expertise spawned the 10,000-hour rule of thumb, told me, You dont get benefits from mechanical repetition, but by adjusting your execution over and over to get closer to your goal. You have to tweak the system by pushing, he adds, allowing for more errors at first as you increase your limits.
Posted on: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 03:24:39 +0000
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