Where Amateurs and Experts Part Ways

Fresh out of a monthslong cycle of exam prepping and heading to the next, I feel the need to rethink my approach to studying, or mastering a skill in general. Yesterday I laid my hands on the first non-textbook in almost a year – Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence by Daniel Goleman, of which the chapter of The Myth of 10,000 Hours resonates with me deeply.

I first learned of the “10,000-hour rule” in Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, which, in my humble opinion, made for an entertaining read but lacks the credibility and seriousness of Focus. Daniel Goleman is a renowned psychologist; Malcolm Gladwell is a renowned journalist. Basically the 10,000-hour rule of thumb is that it takes roughly 10,000 hours to master a skill. It sounded to me a dubious oversimplification while I was reading Outliers years back. For one, the diversity of the “skill” population means some are harder to tame than others. Riding a bike is a skill. Programing is a skill too.

And Focus validates my suspicions towards this rule by pointing out it's 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. You'll still be a duffer, albeit an older one. […] You don't get benefits from mechanical repetition, but by adjusting your execution over and over to your goal.”

Alternatively, it argues that it's “deliberate practice” that really matters. And “deliberate practice” means two things: feedback and focus.

“Ideally that feedback comes from someone with an expert eye – and so every world-class sports champion has a coach. If you practice without such feedback, you don't get to the top ranks.”

Let me apply this to my varied studying projects. For technical subjects which involve concrete answers like arriving at a numerical result, feedback means the suggested answers. For non-technical subjects which involve essay writing, the feedback I can think of is that of those teachers for whose service I paid tuition and should make better use of. A top-tier, human flesh mentor to whom regular access is available is more scarce than a soulmate, but circumstances are excuses for the weak.

And how to focus, according to Focus, is what separates the pros from the posers:

“This is where amateurs and experts part ways. Amateurs are content at some point to let their efforts become bottom-up operations. After about fifty hours of training – whether in skiing or driving – people get to that “good enough” performance level, where they can go through the motions more or less effortlessly. They no longer feel the need for concentrated practice, but are content to coast on what they've learned. No matter how much more they practice in this bottom-up mode, their improvement will be negligible.”

“The experts, in contrast, keep paying attention top-down, intentionally concentrating the brain's urge to automatize routines. They concentrate actively on those moves they have yet to perfect, on correcting what's not working in their game, and on refining their mental models of how to play the game, or focusing on the particulars of feedback from a seasoned coach. These at the top never stop learning: if at any point they start coasting and stop such smart practice, too much of their game becomes bottom-up and their skills plateau. ”

“The expert performer […] actively counteracts such tendencies toward automaticity by deliberately constructing and seeking out training in which the set goal exceeds their current level of performance. […] The more time expert performers are able to invest in deliberate practice with full concentration, the further developed and refined their performance.”

In a nutshell, becoming good at something = (10,000) hours + deliberate practice (feedback + top-down focus). A clerk will forever be a clerk, even if he has mastered the ins and outs of his job to the point of infallibility. To grow you have to innovate and fear no fears in exploring uncharted territories. Make mistakes, rejections and failures your feedback, and life your best mentor.

And I will be a kinkier masochist who are comfortable with being uncomfortable.