This is the idea that it takes approximately 10000 hours of deliberate practice to master a skill.
For instance, it would take 10 years of practicing 3 hours a day to become a master in your subject. It would take approximately 5 years of full-time employment to become proficient in your field. Simply work out how many hours you have already achieved and calculate how far you need to go. You should be aiming for 10000 hours.
The nature v nurture pendulum has a habit of swinging wildly. In the 1960s genetics and biology were out — everything was environmentally determined. Then we understood DNA, the sociobiologists emerged and everything was determined by our genes, our caveman past and the simple process of adaptation.
But the pendulum has swung back. This time the instigator is sports “science” and an idea sometimes called the 10,000 hours rule.
This states that whatever your ability, build or aptitude, you (or anybody) can show expert, talented performance with 10,000 hours of coached, motivated and structured practice.
Practice not only makes perfect, it makes talent. So if you practise yet don’t succeed in winning an Olympic gold or starting a hugely successful company, it is not that you lack the talent, but rather that you have not practised enough.
It’s the old line of “everyone has talent”. You make your talent. No matter the cards you have been dealt, no matter the fact that you may not have chosen your parents well. You can do it.
It seems that common sense goes straight out the window when managements, writers or motivational speakers, seeking gurus, try to interpret the science for their own ends.
First, it seems reasonable to assert that practice is an essential component for elite, expert or excellent performance, be it on the sports field, in the examination hall or in the office. Get a good coach, work hard, have a good practice schedule. But is that enough for real success?
However much focused and deliberate practice is undertaken, it is always constrained or limited. Let’s start with physique. Look at sprinters, swimmers, pole-vaulters. Notice not only their practice-induced musculature, but their height, leg length, foot size. They are remarkably similar within each sport, and are often somewhat different from the normal population.
And what of age? How many 50-year-old sprinters do you see? Things wear out, become weaker, don’t function as well. Even early experience is crucial. The earlier you start — playing the violin, skiing, speaking German — the easier it is to be proficient and, with practice, expert.
But here’s the rub. The sheer quantity of practice cannot finally explain the manifestly apparent differences between elite performers. Take 10 people, put them through the same well-designed but gruelling 20,000-hour practice programme — and one is a star, another an also-ran. That is latent talent.
Talent is not innate or fixed. It is potential that needs shaping. The seed is important but so is the soil, the fertiliser and the nutrients.
Some people learn faster than others. The skill comes more easily and quickly. They are naturals. They take to practice. Even when putting in maximum practice some people are constrained by natural limitations in physiology, morphology (shape) or capacity (intellect).
The investment theorists argue that talent comes from the application of motivation to ability. So people have different learning experiences and they exhibit their opportunities in quite different ways. The bright, curious child reads more and therefore becomes more knowledgeable.
Through experience, people find out more about their likes and their abilities. Some experience early failure, which then becomes self-fulfilling. The belief that they have little skill or talent in an area means they avoid it, practise little and never master it. Others persist, possibly driven by inner competitiveness or pushy parents. They are driven to be successful, willing to put in effort, relaxed about dealing with setbacks.
Some are driven by others. Take away the parent, teacher or coach and their motivation to practise dwindles. Stay in the right crowd and the motivation to succeed develops. Take these people away and the idea of the 10,000 hours to ensure success becomes deeply demotivating.
Different skills place different demands on an individual. These are necessary but not sufficient to become talented. People differ enormously in their passions and capacity to invest in their talents. Outside influences can help people over their performance plateau by only so much.
So talent is not a genetic endowment. It is not something that only needs to be “discovered” within. But nor can you acquire it by willpower alone. Talent for sport, business or art means in part having the right base requirements: size and shape of body and brain. But it requires hard work. Perspiration and inspiration. It is sad, but true, that not everyone has talent. Desire to be talented is not enough. Hard work — indeed, 100,000 hours of practice — will not suffice.
■ Adrian Furnham is professor of psychology at University College London
But the pendulum has swung back. This time the instigator is sports “science” and an idea sometimes called the 10,000 hours rule.
This states that whatever your ability, build or aptitude, you (or anybody) can show expert, talented performance with 10,000 hours of coached, motivated and structured practice.
Practice not only makes perfect, it makes talent. So if you practise yet don’t succeed in winning an Olympic gold or starting a hugely successful company, it is not that you lack the talent, but rather that you have not practised enough.
It’s the old line of “everyone has talent”. You make your talent. No matter the cards you have been dealt, no matter the fact that you may not have chosen your parents well. You can do it.
It seems that common sense goes straight out the window when managements, writers or motivational speakers, seeking gurus, try to interpret the science for their own ends.
First, it seems reasonable to assert that practice is an essential component for elite, expert or excellent performance, be it on the sports field, in the examination hall or in the office. Get a good coach, work hard, have a good practice schedule. But is that enough for real success?
However much focused and deliberate practice is undertaken, it is always constrained or limited. Let’s start with physique. Look at sprinters, swimmers, pole-vaulters. Notice not only their practice-induced musculature, but their height, leg length, foot size. They are remarkably similar within each sport, and are often somewhat different from the normal population.
And what of age? How many 50-year-old sprinters do you see? Things wear out, become weaker, don’t function as well. Even early experience is crucial. The earlier you start — playing the violin, skiing, speaking German — the easier it is to be proficient and, with practice, expert.
But here’s the rub. The sheer quantity of practice cannot finally explain the manifestly apparent differences between elite performers. Take 10 people, put them through the same well-designed but gruelling 20,000-hour practice programme — and one is a star, another an also-ran. That is latent talent.
Talent is not innate or fixed. It is potential that needs shaping. The seed is important but so is the soil, the fertiliser and the nutrients.
Some people learn faster than others. The skill comes more easily and quickly. They are naturals. They take to practice. Even when putting in maximum practice some people are constrained by natural limitations in physiology, morphology (shape) or capacity (intellect).
The investment theorists argue that talent comes from the application of motivation to ability. So people have different learning experiences and they exhibit their opportunities in quite different ways. The bright, curious child reads more and therefore becomes more knowledgeable.
Through experience, people find out more about their likes and their abilities. Some experience early failure, which then becomes self-fulfilling. The belief that they have little skill or talent in an area means they avoid it, practise little and never master it. Others persist, possibly driven by inner competitiveness or pushy parents. They are driven to be successful, willing to put in effort, relaxed about dealing with setbacks.
Some are driven by others. Take away the parent, teacher or coach and their motivation to practise dwindles. Stay in the right crowd and the motivation to succeed develops. Take these people away and the idea of the 10,000 hours to ensure success becomes deeply demotivating.
Different skills place different demands on an individual. These are necessary but not sufficient to become talented. People differ enormously in their passions and capacity to invest in their talents. Outside influences can help people over their performance plateau by only so much.
So talent is not a genetic endowment. It is not something that only needs to be “discovered” within. But nor can you acquire it by willpower alone. Talent for sport, business or art means in part having the right base requirements: size and shape of body and brain. But it requires hard work. Perspiration and inspiration. It is sad, but true, that not everyone has talent. Desire to be talented is not enough. Hard work — indeed, 100,000 hours of practice — will not suffice.
■ Adrian Furnham is professor of psychology at University College London
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