Living in a cave doesn't make you a geologist

Naive Practice vs. Purposeful Practice - Anders Ericsson

Practice makes perfect. Right? So I thought...

When I started my career, I needed to deliver presentations but had no prior experience. I was committed but didn’t know the first thing about actually presenting. I had seen how others presented, so, in the early phases, I tried to follow them, understand the basics and focused on avoiding gross mistakes (like using too many colors and distracting backgrounds).

After those initial “lessons”, I knew enough to “go out” on my own and practice delivering presentations. After a while I felt that I reached a “comfort level” at which I could just go and have fun presenting.

I had reached a point where everything became automatic and an acceptable performance was possible with relatively little thought, so I could just relax and present with ease. In other words, I had mastered the easy stuff but I still had several weaknesses that didn’t disappear no matter how often I practiced.

---

USUAL PRACTICE

Per Anders Ericsson’s research:

1. We all follow pretty much the same pattern with any skill we learn, from cooking to training for a marathon.

2. We start off with a general idea of what we want to do, get some instruction from a teacher or a coach or a book or a website, practice until we reach an acceptable level, and then it becomes automatic.

3. There’s nothing wrong with that. For much of what we do in life, it’s perfectly fine to reach a “middling” level of performance and just leave it like that.

4. BUT, once we reach this satisfactory skill level and automated our performance, we STOP IMPROVING.

5. We often misunderstand this because we assume that continued cooking or running is a “form of practice” and that if we keep doing it, we are bound to get better at it, slowly perhaps, better nonetheless.

6. We assume that someone who has been cooking for twenty years must be a better cook than someone who has been cooking for five, that a doctor who has been practicing medicine for twenty years must be a better doctor than one who has been practicing for five.

7. But no. Once we reach that level of “acceptable” performance and automaticity, the additional years of “practice” don’t lead to improvement. If anything, the doctor or the teacher or the driver who’s been at it for twenty years is likely to be a bit worse than the one who’s been doing it for only five because the automated abilities gradually deteriorate in the absence of deliberate efforts to improve.

---

PURPOSEFUL PRACTICE

Going back to my presentation skills, I understood that I’d be better if I deliberately focused on improving certain skills (e.g., effective empathy, consistently good follow-ups, quality and impactful storytelling).

Per Anders Ericsson:

If we need to improve a skill, we need to know what exactly has to change and what might get us there. In other words, purposeful practice helps us reach expert-level performance and improve at a skill much faster than through regular practice.

1. Purposeful practice has well-defined, specific goals.

   The key thing is to take a general goal that you may have - get better - and turn it into something specific that you can work on with a realistic expectation of improvement.

2. Purposeful practice is focused.

   You seldom improve much without giving the task your full attention.

3. Purposeful practice involves feedback.

4. Purposeful practice requires getting out of one’s comfort zone.

   1. This is the fundamental truth about any sort of practice: If you never push yourself beyond your comfort zone, you’ll never improve.

   2. The solution is not “try harder” but rather “try differently”.

Practice makes perfect? Probably not. Purposeful practice makes perfect.

Until Next Time,

Keshav :)