The #1 Reason Why Good Athletes Fail at Being Great Athletes
Good athletes are good because of their speed, strength, technique, and confidence. While it takes a commendable amount of time to develop these attributes, many athletes are willing to invest this time to be good. Subsequently, good athletes are a dime a dozen.
On the other hand, great athletes are willing to do something extra that good athletes aren’t willing to do. Research from renowned psychology professor, author, and “expert on experts” Anders Ericsson makes this very clear in his seminal book, Peak. Ericsson identifies deliberate practice as the thing that separates those who are good and great.
Ericsson states that “deliberate practice is a very specialized form of practice” to improve a very particular aspect of performance. In addition, Ericsson describes deliberate practice as many hours of solo practice on specific things that drive greatness.
This type of practice requires meticulous planning. It must fit a specific athlete’s improvement needs. Moreover, this planning must draw from expert knowledge to provide the best way to improve the specific area of need.
As a result, an athlete cannot satisfy the requirements of deliberate practice in a group. Group practice is what Ericsson calls generic practice. Generic practices can help the overall group improve; however, generic practice doesn’t target individual performance gaps the same way deliberate practice does. In addition, generic practice can’t make an athlete great.
Therefore, the #1 reason why good athletes fail at being great athletes is that they don’t have a deliberate practice process:
- Meticulously identify very specific areas in their individual performance that needs improvement.
- Get expert help from coaches that can provide proven practice methods to improve those specific areas of performance.
- Spend thousands of hours in private / solo practice sessions working on getting better using those proven practice methods.