Deliberate Practice and the 5 Key Factors of Training
In the middle of one of my half marathons in 2014. I hired a running coach, trained hard, and beat my 7-year old PB.
The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses … in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights. - Muhammad Ali
One of the best things you can learn is how to learn. Life is constantly changing (whether in the job market, with growing kids, or with an aging spouse). You can only stay on the top of your game for so long until the game changes on you.
If you can’t learn new skills, new approaches, and new perspectives, you’re going to miss out. Sitting at home, wearing baggy jeans from the 90s and talking about how there’s been no good music since Nirvana. (Hi Mike!)
So what makes a good learner? I’m going to explore two viewpoints: (i) deliberate practice and (ii) the 5 key factors in training.
Deliberate Practice
In Deep Work, Cal Newport talks about the two core abilities for thriving in the new economy:
The ability to quickly master hard things.
The ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed.
So how do you quickly master hard things? Newport argues that it involves “deliberate practice”, which is an idea Newport takes from a paper written in the early 1990s by K. Anders Ericsson, a professor at Florida State University. In Newport’s words, deliberate practice has two core components:
Your attention is focused tightly on a specific skill you’re trying to improve or an idea you’re trying to master.
You receive feedback so you can correct your approach to keep your attention exactly where it’s most productive.
Newport focuses on #1 to make the point that “deliberate practice cannot exist alongside distraction, and that it instead requires uninterrupted concentration.” This makes sense seeing how Newport’s book is all about the benefits of deep (focused) work.
Selfishly, I’d also like to point out the value of feedback, which is a big benefit of working with a coach. There’s a reason elite athletes have coaches and rising business stars have mentors. There’s a reason my clients value me and I value my own coach. We help you internalize feedback so that the rising star (i.e. you) can better apply your energy in your life.
Frequency, Intensity, Duration, Recovery, and Reflection
In Resilience, Eric Greitens talks about training and how important it is. He posits that there are five variables when dealing with training or practice of any kind: frequency, intensity, duration, recovery, and reflection. He continues:
Frequency is important because we learn through repetition. Our bodies and minds and spirits need to adapt between each practice.
Intensity is important because we grow only when we push ourselves beyond the boundaries of our past experiences.
Duration is important because we need to train as long as necessary for our bodies, minds, and spirits to adapt to our work.
Recovery is important because our bodies, minds, and spirits need time to adapt to what we have learned. When we sleep after exercise, we can grow stronger. When we sleep after studying, we can grow smarter. Even monks take breaks from prayer so that their spirits can grow.
Finally, reflection is important because we have to consider our performance against the standards we have set, adjust ourselves, and integrate what we’ve learned into our lives. Our times of practice will become isolated islands unless we reflect. Reflection is the bridge between what we practice and the way we live our lives.
Greitens argues that in order to be resilient one needs to practice resilience. This has shifted my perspective. When I look at optimistic people, I ask myself how they practice optimism. And how others practice confidence, and yet others practice creativity.
Note too that this perspective puts control in your own hands - you want to be happier? Practice it, again and again and again.
What does this mean for you?
You know that excellence comes wrapped in hard work. You know that the will to win is cheap and common, while the will to train is rare and noble. - Eric Greitens
Well, where have you plateaued? Can you incorporate the principles in this article to break through your plateau?
And if you’ve tried, and you just can’t stick with your habit, let me ask you - do you have the will to train? If you only have the will to win, what would your life look like if you put your energy towards different goals? Goals that you care enough about to want to train?
Which segues perfectly to one final quote from Greitens: “What stunts a lot of people in their practice isn’t that their goals are too big, but that their goals are too small.”
Think about weight loss. Those are just numbers on a scale. I’ve witnessed success that comes when people refocus their goal: “I want to keep up with my kids”, “I want to be healthy as I age”, or “I want to stabilize my mood”. These goals are worth the effort.
So, what big goal do you have that has you hungry to learn?