10, 000 Hours Of Deliberate Practice

Are we wasting our 10,000 hours on deliberate practice hoping that it will lead us to mastery? This question tortures the followers of the idea of Malcolm Gladwell , who in his book called “Outliers” looks at a number of people who are completely proficient in certain subjects or skills. It then tries to reveal what helped them to become “outliers . According to Gladwell, one factor that is common among these selected individuals was the amount of time they practiced within their area of study. It was revealed that only with the help of 10,000 hours of practice one could become an outlier”(Gladwell, 2008). However, studies and researches carried out during the last few years prove that 10,000 hours of deliberate practice is totally misleading

It helps to develop the required skills, way of thinking, gives you a great deal of experience about what you are doing. However, without devotion and talent it equals to nothing. For instance, you can practice playing the piano over and over again and as a result you will be able to play, you will differentiate all techniques , but if you do that just for doing, without pleasure, all your efforts are put in vain, you will never reach mastery. So, only with practice, without taking into consideration other factors, mastery is unattainable. To sum up, there is no doubt that deliberate practice is really very important, from both a statistical and a theoretical perspective. However, this does not mean that it is the only factor which can lead to success and make people masters in their fields. Reaching mastery is a long and difficult process which cannot be acquired just with practice. 10,000 hours of deliberate practice can only explain one third of the variation in performance levels, because mastery actually consists of a combination of many essential factors like genes, innate talents, dedication and intelligence. Finally the quantity of practice is not as much important as the way and quality