Deliberate Practice: The 10,000 Hour Rule and Cultivating Excellence

When I was growing up, spending far too much time launching threes in the gym at Bancroft School, I had the great fortune of overlapping with one the school’s finest athletes. This young man was one of the hardest working people I have ever been around and in his role as my “big buddy” in ninth grade he taught me many things, but none resonated with me quite as much as something he shared with me during one of these three-point-heavy afternoons. While watching me work on a few dribble moves, he said: “Do that again, but do it game speed. ‘Practice makes perfect’ is nonsense — Perfect practice makes perfect.”

It’s a simple take on an age-old cliche that is meant to keep young people plugging away at things they have not yet mastered. But it makes a lot of sense. What good does practicing something the wrong way do any of us? All we do is build habits that make us good at doing something ineffectively.

In his best-selling book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell explores some of the most successful business people, musicians, and athletes and how they each had the extraordinary opportunity to hone their craft from a young age, which set them up for success later in life because of what he termed the “10,000 Hour Rule.” The Beatles in Hamburg. Bill Joy at the University of Michigan. Bill Gates and Lakeside Academy’s computer club. Each had the opportunity to rack up 10,000 hours of practice in their craft before their peers and each went on to change their industry.

But is it really that simple? Can pouring 10,000 hours into something unlock expert knowledge? Brad Stulberg, co-author of Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success, has taken aim at Gladwell’s “rule” and delved deeper in to the research of Florida State University professor K. Anders Ericsson, which is much more dependent on the quality of practice than the quantity of it.

“Yes, great performers spend a lot of time practicing … but there are a lot of people who spend a lot of time practicing who never reach world class or even national class levels,” said Stulberg. “What separates the great performers from those that don’t meet that high bar is not necessarily time spent practicing, but again, what they do as they’re practicing.”

Perfect practice makes perfect.

Over the last four years I had the great fortune of watching two young men realize their potential as basketball players by utilizing deliberate practice. For no more than two hours a day, these two would work on parts of their game that needed polish. There was not a single wasted moment or wayward rep that kept them from achieving their goal from that session. The results speak for themselves.

Meanwhile, there were countless other players in the gym — some on the varsity team, others aspiring for a spot at some point in their career — who would spend more time doing less deliberate work. Launching threes, jogging after rebounds, chatting with friends. Once again, the results speak for themselves.

Cultivating excellence in music or sports, writing or math, begins with intentionality: What do I want out of this class? How am I going to master this move? 10,000 hours spent running the wrong race is not a path towards victory.

Perfect practice makes perfect.