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Success Advice

4 Steps Experts Take To Learn Faster Than You

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4 Steps Experts Take To Learn Faster Than You

Let’s learn how to play Bizaroo. The fictional game invented by me, five minutes agoHow would you start? Your first attempt would naturally be followed by immediate failure and maybe amused laughter from experienced onlookers.

We would then probably say, ”Wow! It’s hard”, followed by a healthy dose of self deprecation. From there we would seek some help, and it would definitely be useful. As long as you don’t have some serious mental handicap, most people would experience a lot of initial growth. Then eventually a plateau.

More than likely a plateau that lasts most of their lives. Quick basic skill acquisition and then long period of plateaus are the norm for most people learning anything. Plateaus are where dreams of mastery go to die. We either become complacent at our current level or just give up. This is the difference between novice level athletes/artists/musicians and exceptional ones.

 

Enter the 10,000 hour rule

Popularized by Malcolm Gladwell’s 2008 book, the notion that mastery requires at least 10,000 hours received a lot of notoriety and pushed Gladwell’s book to best seller status quickly. Although this idea was originally proposed by Florida State Psychology professor Anders Ericsson. Dr. Ericsson is a prominent researcher in the field of skill acquisition and mastery.

Ericsson’s research showed a massive gap in the difference between how ordinary people and experts practice. He concluded,” we know that superior performance does not automatically develop from extensive experience, general education, and domain-related knowledge.”

Instead he proposed there is a huge difference between automatic practice and focused practice, which he called DP (deliberate practice).

“Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.” – Bobby Unser

How you practice is MORE IMPORTANT than how long you practice

Our brains are great at running on autopilot, most of the activities we perform flawlessly every day are extremely complicated cognitive tasks.

The problem is running on autopilot while trying to improve just doesn’t work. We might perform well but we aren’t improving. The main reason is simple. Neuroscience research shows that we simply aren’t encoding information as deeply when we’re running on auto pilot mode.

Luckily Dr. Ericsson has researched this extensively and he has broken deliberate practice down into 4 main areas, which we will look at today. I have incorporated these into my own life with huge improvements. If you use these principles you will destroy your own plateaus and improve much faster.

Here are the 4 steps to help you improve much faster:

 

Step 1: Create a well-defined goal

Yes goals. They are important. Here is an example of a bad goal: Get good at public speaking.

Now a good one. Speak at the next meeting for 1 minute without any pauses, umms, or awws while looking at everyone in the eyes and standing confidently.

The more specific your goal, the more focused your practice can beLaser sharp focus. Think of one SPECIFIC situation. Answer these questions and visualize yourself in that situation:

  • Where are you?
  • What are the people around you doing?
  • How will you react?
  • Feel your body as you imagine yourself going through each movement.

Research shows that just imagining yourself doing something activates all the same areas in the brain as ACTUALLY doing it. Let me rephrase, visualizing something and doing it look the same in MRI scans.

 

Muhamma-Ali

Step 2: Motivation to improve

Motivation is the juice in the engine. It’s the motor oil in your brain keeping all the parts moving and flowing. Experts have clearly defined goals but they are also highly motivated to succeed.

If you want lasting motivation you’ll need a story. A story is the narrative that ties all the ups and downs together to become one continuous landscape. Motivation should be like a journey somewhere through different landscapes.

Don’t focus on one beautiful tree or only an ugly bush, pan out and see all the scenery and know where you are going. Having this clarity is more important than working towards some hedonistic reward as your reward.

Define your story. Ask yourself; Where are you going in one year? Two years? Three years? How does achieving goal 1-10 fit into your overall story?

 

Step 3: Feedback loops

This may be the hardest part. Ericsson’s research showed that experts always had feedback. Either in the form of a mentor, coach or individual self-directed research where they examined others’ performance.

A mentor or a coach will be instrumental in having a second pair of more experienced eyes examine what you are doing. It is hard to objectively evaluate what you are doing by yourself Don’t have a coach? Ericsson’s research showed that many experts don’t either.

Instead he found many expert chess and tennis players spent hours watching videos of other competitors in an attempt to understand their moves and strategy.  If you can’t objectively evaluate yourself, the next best thing is evaluating others.

Learn from the mistakes and successes of others. Just watching others make mistakes can activate our “mirror neurons”. Mirror neurons are special sets of neurons that mirror the behaviour of others as though the observer was acting themselves.

 

Step 4: Repeat and refine

Focus on your specific goal and don’t get side tracked. This is where persistence comes in. Put in the work but be careful. Stay conscious every time you engage in the process. Don’t just do it automatically while thinking about your weekend plans or what you want to eat.

If you can’t focus now it’s not worth doing it now.Practice time isn’t made equal. Focused practice beats just doing it half heartedly. While you are engaging in practice constantly adjust what works and get rid of what doesn’t work.

“The harder you work the luckier you get.” – Gary Player

Putting it all together!

While none of these points are new, using them all together will be able to shift your skill acquisition from that of a normal person to an expert.

Focus on these four fundamentals to learn more efficiently and faster:

  • Create an extremely specific well defined goal-Specific over general goals. One thing at a time.
  • Stay Motivated-What is your story? Why are you engaging in this particular goal? What its value in the long term?
  • Get feedback-Either a coach or watch others perform the same action while observing and learning
  • Repeat and Refine-If you can’t focus now, it’s not worth doing now.

 

Be persistent. Laser focus, backed up by indomitable motivation refining what works and killing what doesn’t, this is Ericsson’s deliberate practice.

Whenever we encounter something truly awe-inspiring that we can barely comprehend how it was created we naturally wonder how someone could be so talented. But every time we receive the same answers, focused work and years of effort.

Apply these principles and be consistent and one day someone will be wondering how you became so good.

What are the kind of things you use to keep focus? What works best for you? Drop a comment below and let us know!

Sean Sergio is the founder of www.brainhacksblog.com, where he explores the science of successful living and psychology. He is an ex-psych PhD student turned high school teacher who is on a mission to reprogram his life and the status quo. Come join him at Brain Hacks Blog.

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Success Advice

Why You Shouldn’t Discount A Brick And Mortar Store In 2025

We’re constantly told about how stores are closing down and how shoppers prefer online options, but is it worth questioning this theory?

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How to grow a brick and mortar store
Image Credit: Midjourney

In 2024, you’d be forgiven for thinking that physical shopping is a thing of the past. We’re constantly told about how stores are closing down and how shoppers prefer online options. But is it worth questioning this theory? (more…)

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Success Advice

How to Alter Your Business Approach With Technological Advancements

Keeping up with technological trends has become a challenge for almost every business owner.

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altering business approach
Image Credit: Midjourney

Technology’s evolution has impacted everything, and business is no exception. Keeping up with technological trends has become a challenge for almost every business owner. Entrepreneurs unable to do so are being wiped out of the market.

There is no doubt that AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning) have taken over the business world. These technological advancements are impacting decision-making, success percentages, and other entrepreneurial aspects.

Adapting to these developments is integral to business success. Let’s explore how you can accomplish these milestones.

Embed the strength of AI and ML.

AI has modified business operations in major ways. For instance, companies have employed bots for customer support. These bots go through an effective learning process via Machine Learning before being able to answer like humans.  

Bots can also perform detailed data analytics and make business moves with high success percentages.

ML is used more for the analysis of data chunks and generating successful predictions. This simply means that business owners do not have to worry about large-scale financial losses. 

In terms of deployment and usage, a reputed company like Netflix employs machine learning for decision-making.

Blockchain is increasing the count of business opportunities

Tampering of financial transactions is quite common and causes severe monetary damage to customers. With the rise of digital payments, this risk has increased. 

Blockchain is used to elevate your experience for monetary transfers. It combats penetrating events to extract confidential customer information. 

Most business sectors are using block chain but finance and supply chain management sections have a higher count. These two corporate sections have several monetary deposits and withdrawals taking place. 

In terms of percentage, approximately 72% and 5% of finance and supply chain firms have implemented block chain successfully.

Dedicate Yourself to Continuous Learning and Individual Development

You invest in learning some of the very important skills, including digital marketing, financial management, and how to gain customers as an entrepreneur.

You need to set up your knowledge base about doing business on Coursera and Udemy with the basics that are necessary for the business, building further by networking with experts through webinars.

Besides, Agile methodology will introduce elasticity to your company: this review and feedback system with further correction regularly will allow for enhancing efficiency and promptly reacting to the market.

Developing key skills to achieve goals

Running a business successfully is not only about having niche/domain knowledge. Business owners need to have communication / soft skills as well in addition to niche information.

Here are some key technical/domain-related areas that business owners should have a strong grip on.

Data Storage on Cloud: These days, companies do not store their data on physical servers. Therefore business owners should know how data is stored/edited/removed/updated via AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and other platforms.

Data Analysis/Interpretation Qualities: These days, data is as precious as gold. Business owners with data analysis abilities make correct predictions. As a result, their ventures grow in volume.

Development/Coding Knowledge

Programming knowledge gives business owners an edge whether the application is developed in-house or outsourced. It assists in getting updates deployed and handling application underperformance without getting professional support every time.

Hacking proof framework

There is no benefit of having an advanced automated system if can be penetrated. Successful business owners have above-average knowledge of cyber security and hacking attempts. They are able to choose top-notch anti-hacking software without much of an ambiguity.

Communication Abilities/Soft Skills

Here are some key communication qualities that business owners should have:

Communication/Conversation: Business owners should use to-the-point sentences in both written and oral communication.

Issue Resolution Abilities: Business owners should be able to drill down to problems and solve them. This is done successfully only if an entrepreneur has in-depth business domain knowledge.

Agile Implementations

It is mandatory for business owners to have knowledge of iterative/agile models. With such a competitive environment, it is impossible for business owners to succeed without adopting an agile framework.

Create a productive well-crafted Business Strategy

A productive business venture starts with a clear vision. The first factor making a business successful is the idea behind it. It helps with endless growth and combating competition successfully. Katherine Philips once mentioned that business goals are inevitable if goals are set concretely.

  • Goals should be based on smart achievements instead of complexity. Focus on the value that each one of them adds. 
  • Business objectives should not be vague. Key indicators should be constructed to measure the success/failure of each milestone.
  • Be realistic when setting goals. Do not aim at impossible milestones since they can be demotivating.
  • Milestones/goals need to be time-bound. Set a completion deadline for each one of them. 
  • Business goals should not be alien. Owners can think out of the box but not be obsolete / unrelated.

Create a productive well-crafted Business Strategy

Business owners cannot succeed without having a network. Some tips help in this case. Attend conferences and professional gatherings to connect with other entrepreneurs.
Here are some other related points business owners should pay attention to.

  • Attend meetings and conferences to stay updated with trends and meet business owners who already have well-set ventures. This helps in enhancing the learning curve of new / growing entrepreneurs.
  • Being a part of business communities/groups is very productive. When one shares opinions and discusses decision-making tactics, it helps in preventing errors and enhancing success rate.
  • Even the most experienced business owners have mentors as learning never stops. Take part in mentorship programs so there is an assurance that you are following the correct roadmap.

Conclusion

There is absolutely no doubt that business dimensions have evolved with technological advancements. Successful entrepreneurs have grabbed these changes in due course of time and continue to evolve. On the other hand, people following old paths and conventional steps fade out of competition. In a nutshell, keep an eye on the processes and practices you follow as these factors decide success rate.

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Success Advice

Understanding the Power of Yes and No: How to Create Boundaries For Success

These words have a significant impact on how our success unfolds

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Creating legal boundaries
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The two smallest yet most powerful words in life, “Yes” and “No,” have a big impact on our growth on both personal and professional levels. In addition to affecting the choices we make every day, these words have a significant impact on how our success unfolds. (more…)

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Motivation

From Couch Potato to Go-Getter: A Step-by-Step Motivation Plan for Everyone

By understanding what motivates you, you can turn your dreams into reality

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How to be motivated
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Are you tired of feeling like a couch potato? Do you want to transform your life and become a go-getter? You’re not alone! Many people struggle with motivation, but the good news is that change is possible. (more…)

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