Malcolm Gladwell popularized the concept of the 10,000 hour rule — it takes about 10,000 hours of “deliberate practice” to become an expert in a field.
Other than lots of practice, what can help us master something?
- Be cooperative and focus on your own performance – not outdoing others.
- A negative attitude, not a positive attitude, makes you more likely to learn from your mistakes. In fact, the shift to focusing on negative feedback is one of the marks of an expert mindset.
- It pays to understand what truly motivates us and the rules our brains work by.
- Make goals and deadlines concrete to reduce procrastination and make behaviors automatic to get more tasks done.
- It’s important to understand the best ways to study and to set goals.
Join 25K+ readers. Get a free weekly update via email here.

