How can you get the most out of the “10000 Hour Rule”?
3–4 years back, I learned about the 10000-hour rule from a book called “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell. Like most of Gladwell’s book, most of the points and assumptions were a little anecdotal and over-simplified. But, nevertheless, he made a great point about the 10000 Hour Rule. Which states that you can reach the “Expert Level” (not just any expert, the expert) at any skill simply by putting in 10000 Hours of Practice. You do have to be average or above-average talent-wise but on top of that 10000 hours is all that is required.
So, if you forget about everything else and start putting in 10000 hours, your brain will start picking up the dynamics of that particular thing and also the intricacies. These will eventually make you better than people who have probably put in 3000 hours throughout their life. So, after a certain period, the differences in expertise level will be very apparent simply because your brain has spent so much time behind it that it will be capable of doing things that others simply can’t.
Gladwell used the examples of Bill Gates and The Beatles to establish the point. I was initially convinced, but on further contemplations, a few questions appeared.
What about people who cook food for their families? Cumulatively their practice hours reach somewhere near the 10k hours. But, they rarely become a global expert in cooking. So I browsed around and found a few counter-arguments & revisions of the 10000-hour rules.
First of all, it works best for more structured fields. But, might not work as good for fluid and subjective fields like Music. This is not to say you cannot learn to be a musician or artist. But, it is definitely harder to learn/internalize than more structured skills.
But, a more interesting insight was: to really become an expert you have to experiment within those 10000 hours.
That means if you keep following the same patterns or keep doing the same thing, without experimenting every now on then, then probably your growth will plateau after some time.
So, imagine you are a cook, and spend 5 hours everyday behind cooking. But the problem is you use the same recipe every day and follow the same process. Sure you will master that recipe, but after a few months your progress will plateau. But on the other hand, after mastering one recipe through repeated practice for few months if you start trying out a few variations of the recipe, that is where your skills will start to expand. Sure, you will prepare some meals that are horrible and completely inedible. But, that is just part of the process. Through Trial and Error, you will start expanding your range, and that is where you will start differentiating yourself from others.
So, Bottom Line:
1. To master something be ready to put in time behind it. (Not just a few hours, a lot of hours).
2. But, go wild with your experimentation within those hours. Try out new things, break out of the mold, try out things you think you cannot do. Otherwise, your growth will plateau.
