The 10,000 Hour rule
Is it possible to set an exact time limit for achieving mastery in some activity? Is it possible that children with less talent will be able to catch up with talented ones? The answer is yes. This answer is born out by research that was carried out in the USA at one of the most prestigious universities in the world. The aim was to find out why students learning a musical instrument (for the purposes of this research, the violin was the instrument researchers focused on) differed in competence. The research tried to ascertain whether these differences were only down to the talent each student was born with or not. The results are encouraging for all of us. Each student was individually interviewed, answering questions about the last 10 years of their lives. They also had to say how much time they spent practising. The results were very different. Those students whose abilities on the violin were lowest spent about nine hours a week practising on their own. Those whose abilities were from a middle to higher level practised for about 24 hours a week. It is clear how levels of proficiency and time devoted to learning are connected. A day has 24 hours, and so a week has 168 hours. We sleep for about 8 hours a day, or roughly 56 hours a week. 112 hours is left. Students spend 56 hours at school a week. If we put all those numbers together, it means that about 56 hours of free time remain, almost half of which is spent practising. How much of your free time do you spend on extra thinking and training? The results of the research were clear — what was considered an innate talent was in fact down to extra hours of exercise. The last difference noted between the first and second group was the number of hours that the students had spent practicing from the moment they first held a musical instrument in their hands until the moment they were tested by the researchers.
The results were as follows:
* the worst group had spent 3 420 extra hours on practising
* the middle group 5 301 extra hours
* and the best group 7 140 extra hours.
In some sports, especially those in which we perform simple movements, such as in running, cycling or swimming, there does not need to be particularly extensive individualised training regarding the practising of techniques. Sports which require demanding and complex techniques do require much more strenuous and focused individualised training. Such sports include, for example, gymnastics, swimming, and fencing. For an athlete to achieve mastery in any given sport, 10,000 hours appears to be the amount required. The best athletes do not come first because they are talented. Talent is just something that makes a first impression on a coach, giving them a general picture of the young athletes they are to train. These athletes come first in a match (for example), because each day they devote a little more time to their hobby than other people do. Those who are able to spend more hours and minutes training a year than their competitors are on their way to achieving the success they covet. If we think about sport at its highest level, victory is determined by just a few centimetres or seconds. Do you see what I’m getting at?
