How to Go from Good to Great by Managing Two Numbers
Research suggests there are two numbers you must manage to go from good to great. First, you must understand what it takes to go from being a beginner to being good. Obviously, you can’t get to great unless you first understand what it takes to get to good.
Author and skills acquisition expert Josh Kaufman’s research suggests that you can go from knowing nothing to being good at anything in 20 hours. Of course he’s not talking 20 hours giving half-ass effort. This is 20 hours of deliberate practice doing the right thing, the right way. So, 20 is the first of the two numbers you must manage.
Next, renowned psychology professor and “expert on experts” Anders Ericsson’s research suggests it takes roughly 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become great. However, this “10,000 hours” is just a rule of thumb. If all the great people in your field are all investing 20,000 hours to be great, then it will take at least 20,000 hours to be great. If all the great people are only putting in 1,000 hours to be great, then it may only take 1,000 hours to be great. 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.
Why It’s So Hard to Go from Good to Great
Therefore, the second number you must manage to go from good to great is a variable number. While it sounds good to say 10,000 hours, you may get to 10,000 hours and still only be good. This is what makes it so hard to go from good to great.
It’s relatively easy to go from beginner to good. Almost anyone can do it. It’s a well-defined process that many people have completed. Thus, it’s easy to copy someone else’s blueprint.
On the other hand, it’s nearly impossible to copy an exact blueprint for going from good to great. Firstly, no one really knows how many hours of practice it will take, other than it takes an extreme amount of time. Secondly, it’s so much harder to persevere during times of adversity when you don’t know where the finish line is or how much longer it will take.
Anyone can overcome failure when they can see success around the corner. That is why going from a beginner to good is not only easy, but also an immediate gratification event that is tremendously rewarding. But once you’re already good, and your good isn’t good enough to prevent failure after failure without an end in sight, you need something else. You need the right mindset.
The Mindset it Takes to Persevere from Good to Great
There is one overarching mindset that you must have to continue to persevere as you journey to 10,000 hours of practice and beyond to go from good to great. That is the mindset of a person who views their entire life as preparation.
A person who views their entire life as preparation is one that is keenly aware that small wins matter and that both bad and good habits compound overtime. This mindset is one that puts extreme focus on winning the day, each and every day.
This simply means that the principle that governs this mindset is that the small things one does each day will total up into big things one day. We don’t control the date of one day, but we do control the small things we do every day.
Ultimately, this is the defining characteristic of this mindset. One must accept the fact that they don’t control how much time it will take to go from good to great. While others may make the mistake of skipping steps and taking shortcuts to try to force the day of greatness to come sooner, those with this mindset never take shortcuts. Shortcutting the process is far more likely to delay greatness rather than to accelerate it.
History shows that you can’t control the outcome, but you can control the process. So, it’s always best to error on the side of trusting and staying persistent with the process over running out of patience. This is how you go from good to great.