The secret behind expert intuition and world-class mastery is no secret at all

It’s just repetition

Lily Chen
Lily Chen
Aug 31, 2018 · 4 min read

“Damn! How are you so good at this?”

I have caught myself thinking this thought more than once, and in various scenarios.

One example immediately jumps to mind. A few years ago, I decided to learn programming. My boyfriend at the time, who studied computer science, spent a lot of time working through algorithm questions with me.

One of the questions we came across involved finding the consecutive sequence within an array whose integer values produce the largest sum.

I struggled forever without even finding a place to start. He, however, looked at the problem and immediately knew the approach.

“How are you so good at this?”

“Repetition. After you’ve done tons of problems, you just know.”

At the time, I couldn’t fathom ever developing that kind of intuition. However, after coding up the solution to countless problems myself throughout the last few years, I finally can finally empathize with my ex’s statement.

For instance, recursion used to be a nightmare… until I developed intuition on how to approach many recursive problems.


Imagine this scenario:

Two people are playing chess, thinking intensely on the next few moves. A chess master walks by and with a mere glance, says “white mates in three.”

We’ve all heard of such stories of expert intuition.

As “commoners”, we like to place these chess masters on a magical pedestal. To us, they’re simply geniuses.

However, Herbert Simon, who won a Nobel Prize in the 70s, who has studied chess masters, saw through the so-called myth of expert intuition.

The dirty secret behind this magical skill is nothing more and nothing less than recognition through repetition.


Repetition is not only the ingredient to better intuition, it is also the ingredient to getting better at any tangible skill.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote in his book, Outliers, the 10,000 Hour Rule. The principle holds that 10,000 hours of “deliberate practice” are needed to become world-class in any field.

While studies have shown that it’s truer in some situations than others, the underlying theme can’t be argued.

When I started pole dancing, I sucked. I was always the worst in class because I didn’t grow up doing anything athletic. Now, I’ve punched above my weight and came up on top at competitions. In dance, fluidity comes with repetition. The number one factor that determines how well I perform in a competition is how many times I have ran through the routine.

When I started my first job in tech, I sucked. It took me days to code up a simple static HTML page. Not only that, but the eventual pull request got DESTROYED! Now, I can architect and pull together a complex full-stack project from scratch with minimal help.

I got to where I am now through countless hours of practice.


The fact that mastery comes with repetition is a double-edged sword. On one hand, you know that as long as you keep putting in the effort, you will be good. On the other hand, the reward is never immediate. It takes time, and thus it can be demotivating when progress is not immediately seen.

I don’t have good advice on combating this feeling, just the knowledge that repetitions will add up. As long as you keep going, keep putting in the effort, you have nowhere to go but up.

“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.” — Earl Nightingale

This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by +364,117 people.

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Lily Chen

Written by

Lily Chen

Premed turned software engineer. Editor of medium.com/journeys-in-tech. Always on a quest for self-improvement. Dancer at heart.

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