Never Forget This about the 10,000 Hours of Practice Rule of Thumb
It’s no secret that it takes thousands of hours of practice to be the best at anything. What’s more, research from Anders Ericsson that Malcolm Gladwell made a pop culture rule of thumb, suggest it generally takes at least 10,000 hours of practice to be among the best in competitive fields.
However, this “10,000 hours” rule of thumb is just that, a rule of thumb. It’s not a defacto rule and it’s definitely not a standard. Unquestionably, the idea that you need 10,000 hours of practice to be among the best is simply a reminder that it’s a long difficult road to go from good to great.
How long depends on many factors.
- Do you have great coaching?
- Can you toil through boring and repetitive drilling without decreasing the quality of your reps?
- How much of your practice time is spent on deliberate practice vs. generic practice?
These three questions are critical to answering the “how long” question. Yet, there is one more question that is even more important than these three…
How many hours are the other people working to be the best putting into their training?
If the best people are all investing 20,000 hours, then it will take at least 20,000 hours to be the best. If all the best people are only putting in 1,000 hours, then it may only take 1,000 hours to be the best. Simply stated, when all other things are equal, the people who practice more are generally always going to be better than everyone else, and “more” is infinite.
This is what you should never forget. Being the best is a competition against time, not a competition to reach a specific number or person.