Personal Skills Development
The determining factors that produce Elite performers are :
The Amount of Practice ~ The Quality of Practice ~ The Players Commitment to Practice.
The Amount of Practice.
Current scientific research has pointed to the fact that all elite performers in any field, be it science, music or sport, have attained more than 10,000 hours of contact time within their field. To put that into real terms, we are talking about 500 hours per year over 20 years, 10 hours per week, or around 2 hours per day.
The Quality of Practice.
Training and practice must always be set at a level that will stretch players. Repetition is vital, but the progression is key.
The Players Commitment to Practice.
However many hours we spend practising, ultimately the drive, desire and passion to achieve must come from within the players themselves. Those solitary hours of hard work will ultimately pay dividends, but if we have to force athletes to train, then we are on a slippery slope.
The Power Of Practice
Science has shown if we’re going to become remarkable
performers we have to learn to practice.
Practice is the key to a remarkable performance
“no matter how good you become, you can always get better”
David Beckham, for example, would take a football to the local park in East London and kick it from the same spot for hour upon hour.” His dedication was breathtaking” his father has said. “It sometimes seemed that he lived on the local field ”
Beckham concurs ” My secret is practice. I have always believed that if you want to achieve anything special in life you have to work, and then work some more ”If you want to achieve the same kind of success, you have to work like crazy regardless of your background, genes, colour or creed.
Deliberate Practice
If you think that term suggests that we’re talking about something beyond normal practice, you’re right. When most people practice, they focus on the things they can do effortlessly. The expert practice is different. It entails considerable, specific and sustained efforts to do something you can’t do well – or even at all. Only by working at what you can’t do, turns you into the expert you want to become.
In the words of Matthew Syed ” The talent theory of expertise is not merely flawed in theory; it is insidious in practice, robbing individuals and institutions of the motivation to change themselves and society."Even if we can’t bring ourselves to embrace the idea that expertise is ultimately about the quality and quantity of practice, can’t we accept that practice is far more significant that previously thought? That talent is a largely defunct concept? That each and every one of us has the potential to tread the path to excellence?
