we can think of a handful of individuals who have achieved the top level of performance in thier fields. Think about Tiger Woods as a golf player, Bill Gates as Microsoft's founder and businessman, Boobby Fischer as a chess player, Thomas Edison as an inventor, and Socrates as a philosopher. How did they achieved such excellence? What made these individuals' performance so extraordinary? How were they able to improve their performance constantly even when other would believe they had reached a plateau? what these individauls have in common is that they devote large number of hours to deliberate practice. Deliberate practice is different from regular practice and from simply working many hours a week. Professor K. Anders Ericson of Florida State Univercity gives the following example: "Simply hitting a bucket of balls is not deliberate practice, which is why most golfers don't get better. Hitting an eight-iron 300 times with a goal of leaving the ball within 20 feet of the pin 80% of the time, continually observing results and making appropriate adjustments, and doing that for hours every day-that's deliberate practice." Top performance in all fields engage in deliberate practice consistently, daily, including weekends. The famous pianist Vladimir Horowitz was quoted as saying: "If I don't practice for day, I know it; if I don't practice for two days, my wife knows it; if I don't practice for three days, the world knows it." Deliberate practice involves the following five steps:
1. Approach performance with the goal of getting better and better.
2. As you are performing, focus on what is happening and why you are doing things the way you do.
3. Once your task is finished, seek performance feedback from expert sources, and the more sources the better.
4. Build mental models of you job, your situation, and you organization.
5. Repeat Step 1-4 continually and on an ongoing basis.