Expertise depends on the ability to perceive features that others do not normally notice or recognise as important. All world class sportsmen, successful leaders, thinkers, business owners have this ” ability to perceive” as their innate nature. We too can become experts in our field by application of the technique called “Deliberate Practice”

Deliberate practice is characterised by a high degree of focused effort to develop specific skills and concepts beyond ones current abilities. For example playing basketball give us one way to to get better at basketball. However professional players know that just playing the game leads to “performance plateau” (a performance plateau can be defined as a point in your sports training program when progress levels-out in areas such as increase strength, endurance or overall performance, where it becomes more difficult to achieve any significant gains). To escape this plateau, players need to step away from their games, that are the very reason for playing basketball and dedicate time and effort to improve specific shots, moves and conditioning.

What separates the truly great from the rest of us is, many more hours spent engaging in deliberate practice. As the living legend Virat Kohli said in an interview – “if you give up the journey you are done. One needs to work hard again and again. Consistency and success is nothing but repeating the same thing day in and day out”.

Many leaders find it hard to engage in ‘Deliberate Practice’ because novices do not have the experience to know what skills they should be working on or how to go about it. This being the crux of reasons that they fail even before they start. Deliberate practice involves focusing what is beyond one’s current skill set rather just executing what one already is able to do. 

Deliberate practice refers to a special type of practice that is purposeful and systematic. While regular practice might include mindless repetition, deliberate practice requires focussed attention and is conducted with specific goal of improving performance. Swami Vivekananda had an incredible amount of concentration/ focus ( details of this can be found in his book called Raja Yoga). Swamiji once said that “ concentration is the essence of all knowledge and success, nothing can be achieved without it. 90% of thought force is wasted by ordinary human being and therefore he is constantly committing blunders. The trained mind or man never makes a mistake”. He is also referring here to Deliberate practice and the art of concentration.

Anders Erricson was the one who advocated ‘ Deliberate practice’ and he said “ Gold standards of Deliberate practice are as follows

1. Having a specific goal

2. Expert coaching

3. Consistently learning from feedback

4. Learning in your discomfort zone

5. Being focused and involved

6. Using mental representation

1. Do your checklist activity on the above and measure your current style of practice…

My time dedicated to your success.

Best,
Seshadri