Disperionality is negligent years of training. A guarantee of success in any business is not countless hours of classes, but a conscious practice and concentration. The psychologist and scientific journalist Daniel Gowman tells about this in the new book Focus. Fragment.
Scientific journalist Daniel Goleman (Daniel Goleman) is twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for articles on brain research in The New York Times. He is the author of ten books, including the bestseller "Emotional Intelligence" (1995). This book in different countries of the world has been published in circulation of more than 5 million copies. His new book “Focus” about attention, distraction and life success ”was published in Corpus Publishing House.
“The rule of 10,000 hours” (the reading that it is such a volume of practice that guarantees loud success in any endings) has become almost a biblical revelation reprinted on numerous sites and read, like prayer, in practical seminars on how to become an ace in a particular business 1 . However, this is only part of the truth. After all, if, say, in the golf you are zero and every time, working out this or another dug or blow, make the same mistakes, 10,000 hours of training will not help you. You both were, you will remain zero, except that.
Psychologist Anders Ericksson from the University of Florida, on the basis of whose studies of professional competence and empirically 10,000 hours were bred, said to me the following: “There is no use from mechanical repetitions, you need to change the technique now and then to move closer to the goal. It is necessary to configure the system, pushing its boundaries, and on the way to excellence you can at first allow yourself to be wrong. ". Unlike sports such as basketball or football, in which certain physical data (height and weight) are desirable, in mental activity, according to Ericksson, almost everyone can achieve the highest skill.
Ericksson believes that the secret of victory lies in https://globalpharmacy24.com/drug/tadalista-super-active “focused practice”, during which a specialist mentor has been dragging you through a well-thought-out training plan for months and even years. Countless hours of classes are a necessary, but not sufficient condition for high achievements. It is important how exactly experts work this or that technique. For example, in his widely quoted study dedicated to violinists (the most successful of which was practicing more than 10,000 hours), Ericksson states: the musicians were completely concentrated on improving a certain aspect of their performance, which was indicated by the mentor 2 .
Conscious practice always implies feedback, which allows you to recognize and eliminate errors – this is why dancers use mirrors. In the ideal case, this feedback comes from a person with a professionally outlined eye, and that is why all world -class athletes must have a coach. If you do without receiving feedback, you can not dream about the upper lines of world tables. So, not only the volume of training is important, but first of all, feedback and concentration.
Lucy Joe Palladino
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Cognitive psychologist from the USA Lucy Joe Palladino examined the problems of attention for more than 30 years. She claims to be in our power to remain concentrated all day. And describes in detail eight cognitive strategies for increasing attentiveness.
To understand how to improve this or that skill, descending focus is necessary. The plasticity of the nervous system, the strengthening of existing neurons and the formation of new ones to ensure the skill in which we practice requires concentrated attention from us. If the exercise occurs when we focus on something else, the brain cannot use the system corresponding to a particular activity. The distraction is not nullified by the clock hours, and those who watch TV during class are never reached by the heights of skill. Apparently, absolute concentration accelerates the brain, strengthens synaptic connections, and also expands or forms neurons network for a specific type of activity. At least at first it happens just like that. However, as you take possession of skill in a new type of activity, in the course of repeated practice, control goes from a descending mechanism requiring conscious concentration, to ascending connections, thanks to which we make anything without making any efforts. In this phase we do not need to think – we are doing work on the machine.
And it is here that the paths of amateurs and professionals diverge. Fans are enough that at some point their actions begin to be carried out according to the ascending mechanism. After about 50 hours of practice (skiing or driving or driving a car), people go to a “fairly tolerable” level, at which they more or less freely move from one movement to another. They do not feel the need for concentrated practice and are content with what they have already learned. It doesn’t matter how long they will be practiced in this ascending mode – if they move forward, then only slightly. In contrast, professionals constantly work with downward, focused attention, intentionally stopping the desire of the brain to automate one or another type of activity. They are actively focusing on those movements that still need to work on, correct what does not work out, mentally imagine the perfect performance or work on the details indicated by the venerable coach. Those who occupy the upper lines are always improving: if at some point they are content with what they already know how, and throw difficult training, their game acquires a rather ascending character, and skills cease to improve. “A professional constantly and deliberately suppresses any automatism, focusing on the results that exceed his current level of training,” says Ericksson. – the more time professionals can devote conscious practice with a complete concentration, the more developed and honed their skill will be ”3 .
For more details see. In the book d. Gowlman "Focus. On attention, distraction and life success ”(Corpus, 2015).
1 rule 10,000 hours gained fame thanks to the bestseller of Malcolm Gladwell “Genius and outsiders” (United Press, 2014). And Daniel Goleman previously wrote about a study that served as the basis for the book-this is the work of Anders Ericksson, a cognitive scientist from Florida University (D. Goleman "Peak Performance: Who Records Fall", New York Times, 11.10.1994)
2 k. A. Ericsson et al. “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance”, Psychological Review, 1993, No. 47.
3 k. A. Ericsson "Development of Elite Performance and Deliberate Practice" in the book: J. L. Starkes, K. A. Ericsson et al. "Expert Performance in Sports: Advances in Research on Sport Expertise" (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2003).