How to learn deliberate practice

Have you heard of ‘deliberate practice’? You might well have, because Swedish psychologist Anders Ericsson’s work on what makes an expert has been hugely influential over the years. His co-authored original paper from 1993 1 has been cited more than 3,000 times and it has spawned more than a few popular books, including Geoff Covin’s Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else, Malcom Gadwell’s Outliers: The Story of Success, and Daniel Coyle’s The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown. Here’s How. Oh, those titles. The key message of ‘deliberate practice’ is simple but not obvious. If you want to become an expert you have to do the right kind of practice. This was stated very clearly in Ericsson’s widely-read book, Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise (2016): “If you are not improving, it’s not because you lack innate talent; it’s because you’re not practicing the right way. Once you understand this, improvement becomes a…