Purposeful Practice

It will be good for us to focus on purposeful practice for a bit.  This is a large topic so we will hit the highlights.  And keep in mind that this concept is for mankind in a variety of endeavors. 

The important skill that we are dealing with here is ‘mastery’, not logging how many minutes or hours we spend on a skill.  My wife Carolyn teaches piano students.  Her philosophy is that she would rather a student focus on three difficult measures and practice them perfectly for ten minutes than log thirty minutes and breeze past those troublesome measures and never improve.

I am in banking.  I am required to know five different software programs that are proprietary to the banking industry.  When I was new I kept stumbling over one particular program and I realized that I had to master this particular program or my banking career would be very limited. 

I asked my banking partner for thirty minutes one Tuesday morning for us to specifically focus on HOGAN.  As Travis coached me, I wrote down every stroke, every command that he taught me, and then after our session I practiced for another hour or more.  My skill drastically improved and I’m proud to say I can maneuver around that program with great ease now.  But it took purposeful practice.

I’ve read about sports figures who dedicated endless hours – yes hours – in solo practice perfecting a particular stroke (for golfers) or a jump shot (for basketball players).  They were intent on that one skill in their game of choice and given enough time their diligence paid off. 

An axiom I take away from this is:  It’s not a matter of how many minutes or hours we randomly spend on a skill.  It is a matter of how focused we are on one troubling aspect of that skill and putting our focus on that spot.

We do the thing “ON PURPOSE”.

  

P Michael Biggs

Words of Encouragement

Words of Inspiration