| StockFetcher Forums · General Discussion · Practice Makes Perfect | << >>Post Follow-up |
| TheRumpledOne 6,411 posts msg #44584 - Ignore TheRumpledOne |
6/4/2006 10:35:39 AM http://earlytorise.com/archive/html/060206-2.html#main -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect." - Vince Lombardi Practice Makes Perfect By Michael Masterson Renato, one of my Jiu Jitsu instructors, has convinced me to get back into grappling in a kimono. "It will be hard at first," he told me. "But after a few months, when you go back to fighting without the gi, your game will be better." I know he's right. But when he worked with me on it yesterday, I felt like a white belt again. He was slapping arm bars, foot locks, and collar chokes at the rate of one per minute. At the end of my hour-long class, I was ready to cry. I've been practicing this sport for seven years now. But when I put on that kimono, I regressed. Big time. Renato, who competes at 145 pounds, was tossing me around like a rag doll. And I outweigh him by 50 pounds. I know from experience, though, that if I keep on practicing, I'll get better. A month from now, after I've relearned my gi defenses and have regained a little confidence, I'll be giving away fewer submissions. And one day, I'll give none. I have no great natural talent for submission wrestling, but I am improving every day because I am willing to do what it takes. Making myself a better wrestler is no tougher than improving my Spanish language skills. I simply have to set myself specific goals, put in the time to practice, and keep at it until I succeed. There is almost nothing you can't accomplish so long as you are willing to put in the time. This is something we've been saying in ETR for years - and now there is a substantial academic work on this subject that confirms our view. K. Anders Ericsson, a professor of psychology at Florida State University, has studied the subject of "expert performance" pretty much his entire professional life. Thirty years ago, he performed an experiment in which he trained people to hear and repeat series of numbers. Untaught subjects were able to remember about seven digits in a row. After 20 hours of training, their memory had improved to the point where they could remember a 20-digit sequence. After 200 hours of training, they could remember a sequence of more than 80 numbers. Later experiments in this area led Ericsson to conclude that whatever innate capacity a person might have for remembering, that's nothing compared to how much he can learn by practice. All of Ericsson's research and findings have been put together in an 800-page book called The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance that will be published in July. The bottom line: "Talent is highly overrated." Do what you want to do, Ericsson advises. Even if that means pursuing something for which you have no evident talent. "A lot of people believe there are some inherent limits they were born with," Ericsson told The New York Times. "But there is surprisingly little hard evidence that anyone could attain any kind of exceptional performance without spending a lot of time perfecting it." That doesn't mean all people have equal potential. Some people - like my neighbor's child (who is singing opera at age nine) or Renato - seem to be "hard wired" at birth with a facility for certain skills. But in order to realize their potential, they will have to put in many hours of practice. And if they don't, they can easily be surpassed by someone who has no natural talent. That's one of the important messages in Ericsson's book: Anyone can learn to be good at pretty much anything so long as he has the time and tenacity to practice doing it. Of course, it can't be just any sort of practice, Ericsson warns. It must be what he calls "deliberate practice." Deliberate practice involves more than repeating a specific task. To achieve the kind of expert performance we're talking about: 1. You have to set specific goals. 2. You have to get immediate feedback on your efforts. 3. You have to concentrate on technique as outcome. As I said, this confirms what we've been saying in ETR for years. 1. Setting specific goals As Charlie Byrne said in Message #1477, the more specific your goal is, the more likely you will be to achieve it. In The Success Principles, author Jack Canfield explains how to set ultra-specific goals: * Instead of "I want a new oceanfront house," say "I'll own a 4,000 sq. ft. house in Malibu by April 30, 2007." * Instead of "I'm desperate to lose some weight," say "I'll weigh 185 lbs. by 5 p.m. Jan. 1, 2007." * Instead of "I need to treat my employees better," say "I will acknowledge at least six employees for their contributions to the department by 5 p.m. this Friday." 2. Getting immediate feedback on your efforts Getting feedback usually means working with a teacher. We've talked about this in past ETR messages about mastering skills. Expert teachers help you in two ways: They chart a course of instruction for you to follow, they correct you every time you veer off course, and they pretty much force you to keep track of your progress. Getting expert help when you are learning a new skill will shorten your learning curve dramatically and thus significantly reduce the time (and sometimes money) you have to invest in it. It will also greatly reduce the frustration that comes with learning anything new - and that might keep you from giving up. In Message #1559, I explained that a quality learning program can take you a long way toward acquiring the financially valuable skill of your choice. And I said that you can accelerate your progress by spending several months or a year working at the feet of a master. The very best athletes, entertainers, and business leaders all have someone in their corner that they can go to for advice, leadership, and teaching. So, if you don't already have one, make it a goal to find a mentor who will help fine-tune your game, hold you accountable, and who is not afraid to criticize when necessary. 3. Concentrating on technique as outcome This is a subtle qualification. What it means - I think - is that, in practicing a skill, you should concentrate on the correct execution of that skill and not so much on the rewards you will enjoy once the skill is fully mastered. In other words, the reward for accomplishing any specific technique should be the psychological satisfaction of knowing that you've mastered it. This approach makes sense. It is, more or less, how behavior modification specialists work. And we talked about it in Message #102: "The Jazz Master's Secret." The jazz master was blues guitarist Howard Roberts, who claimed that the secret of his virtuosity was to "never practice a mistake." His theory was that any learning is the biological process of creating neural networks in the brain. Every perfect repetition beats a good path - one that you can travel on later. Every incorrect repetition beats a parallel but incorrect path - one that you can easily slide onto if you aren't careful. The more you practice the right moves, the deeper the memory path. The trick is to make the correct paths as deep as possible and the incorrect paths shallow or nonexistent. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's Action Plan Don't let anyone (including that doubting Thomas in your head) tell you that you can't become very good at anything. If you want it badly enough, you can do it. By "deliberately practicing" a skill long enough, you will achieve a solid level of competence. As I've said many times in ETR, I figure that takes about 1,000 hours - though you can cut it down to 600 or 700 hours if you have a good teacher. Practice longer (2,000 to 4,000 hours longer) and you can become a true master - someone who performs that skill better than almost everybody, including those who may have had a natural gift but never worked very hard to develop it. |
| TheRumpledOne 6,411 posts msg #44586 - Ignore TheRumpledOne |
6/4/2006 10:41:38 AM http://earlytorise.com/archive/z_archive/060600.htm Message #102 Tuesday’s Action Brief #1 “Down the stairs and up Fifth Avenue. Hippity-hop, I’m a Bunny!” Gloria Steinem, “I Was a Playboy Bunny,” Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1983) Every Tuesday, I am going to give you something to do. It will be a specific action. You will be able to do it in less than 30 minutes. It will get you closer to where you want to be in life. I’m going to start by urging you to do something you may regard as “silly,” “unnecessary” or “wasteful.” Don’t be cynical. This can change your life. It has worked for every one who has tried it, including dozens of individuals I’ve personally coached and it has worked for me too. HOW TO ACCOMPLISH ALL YOUR MOST IMPORTANT GOALS: START TODAY BY SELECTING THEM – THE REST IS EASY Take out a sheet of paper. Title it “Life’s Goals” (if you have no shame) or “Stuff to Do Before I Croak” (if you are afraid someone will see it). Now make a list of everything you want to accomplish. Everything. Making a lot of money. Writing books. Traveling to Rome. Learning to tap dance. Write till you are done. Let it sit for a few hours. Even a day. Then narrow the list down to your top ten choices. Then take another rest. Now make another cut. This time you have to select your top four goals. (Imagine your obituary. What would you want said about you?) Okay these are your Life Goals, your top priorities, your bottom-line objectives. Now of the four, pick one that is numero uno. On a separate sheet of paper…or perhaps on an index card…write down these four with the top choice on top. Highlight that one. The plan you are about to learn will pretty much guarantee that you achieve all four objectives before you die. It will definitely allow you to complete the first one. How good is that? Consider this – if you haven’t done these things yet and you’re over 30…there is an 80% plus chance you won’t finish them…ever. Unless you follow this program. Okay. Here’s what you need to do now. Convert those four goals into five-year objectives. For example, let’s say that one of your Life Goals is to have a net worth of ten million dollars. And let’s say that you want to retire in ten years. You might make “having a $5 million net worth” your five year goal. You are going to use this five-year list to create a one-year list. And you will use the one-year list to create monthly lists. And you will use the monthly list to create weekly lists. And the weekly lists to create dailies. I know. I know. But it works. It really works. Tomorrow we’ll see how to make this conversion from a five-year plan to a daily to-do list. For today, just focus on getting the big four picked out. Do that and think about this: if you make these your priorities you will almost surely have to sacrifice other, lesser interests to achieve these. And to make sure you complete your top goal, you may have to compromise even some of the other four. But the good news is that you will definitely achieve your primary goal and you will have a much better chance of finishing the other three than you would ever have otherwise. |
| StockFetcher Forums · General Discussion · Practice Makes Perfect | << >>Post Follow-up |
Copyright 2022 - Vestyl Software L.L.C.•Terms of Service | License | Questions or comments? Contact Us
EOD Data sources: DDFPlus & CSI Data
Quotes delayed during active market hours. Delay times are at least 15 mins for NASDAQ, 20 mins for NYSE and Amex. Delayed intraday data provided by DDFPlus