Writer Wednesday — What Makes an Expert 10,000 Hours or 500 Words Daily?

There’s a perfect example to illustrate the obvious answer.

Writer Wednesday — What Makes an Expert 10,000 Hours or 500 Words Daily?

There’s a perfect example to illustrate the obvious answer. There is a mathematical folklore, by an author named Demi, titled One Grain of Rice. To summarize the tale, it goes as follows:

There was an unfair and selfish raja in India, long ago. In his province, everyone was a rice farmer. One year, the rice didn’t grow as plentiful as it had in years past. The farmers of the province, after giving the majority of rice to the raja and leaving themselves only enough to eat, quickly grew hungry due to the famine.

With the rice from seasons past stored away, the raja ordered a feast for himself and his court. As it was being carried in baskets, held by elephants, some of the rice started to fall. A village girl named Rani, daughter of a farmer, quickly started to grab some of the rice with her skirt.

Being caught by the guards, she was sent to the raja for punishment. Thinking quickly on her feet, Rani declared that she was capturing the rice so it would not go to waste for the raja. Turning her story into a good deed, the raja presented Rani with the opportunity for a reward.

She asked for a single grain of rice. A modest reward for such an ‘awesome deed.’ Again thinking quickly on her feet, Rani asked for the grain of rice to be doubled for the next thirty days. One grain today, two tomorrow, four the next day, and so on. The raja agreed.

By the end of of the month, Rani was practically swimming in rice for herself, the raja, and the entire village. Read the entire story here.

The idea here, in relation to this article, is to show the power of exponential growth. You can take your small reward and become a savior, or you can capitalize on the opportunity and forever be a hero to all.

Working 10,000 hours establishes expertise, there is no denying that. HOWEVER writing 500 words a day, every day (or most days), past that 10,000 hour mark you’ll continue to increase your expertise. It shows that you’re in it for the passion and not the title of being an expert in your field. There’s no reason why you should not be writing or improving your craft every day of your life. Even if you’re only able to jot 500 words of a project or story, it will be worth way more than hammering out 16 hour days every single day for a month and then not working as hard for the next few months due to fatigue. Like I always say: consistency is key.

Write every day for the love of writing, not to become the best. You’ll inadvertently become the best because you’re consistently engaging in on your passion and thus sharpening your skills. Most importantly, the fuel will never die. All it takes is setting some good habits and the rest of your path to expertise will then be set on autopilot.

Create every day. Create and add value. Work on your passions and it’ll awaken the passions in others. Be the domino. Help awaken the passions in others and let them know that with enough effort, they too can live the life they want simply by consistently engaging in on what makes them happy.

Feel free to share and recommend this article if you have found it to be valuable and if you know of others that would benefit from hearing this information. If you have questions, as always, tweet them to me @ErickHoxter. I look forward to connecting with you all!