Deliberate Practice Examples

In the book Peak by Anders Ericsson, he introduces different kinds of practice, including, purposeful practice, deliberate practice, and what we call naive practice. Deliberate practice is one of the most important practices that we can use to improve anything we want to do, whether it be improving in a sport, learning an instrument, or even adding it to our leisure. For example, if you play on the basketball team, you can always practice over and over again, to try to better yourself. This is called deliberate practice. If you are on a basketball team, and only practice, maybe, twice a week, this is what most of us will call naive practice. Deliberate practice and “practice” are two different things. We can put our mind to anything if we …show more content…
Ericsson would read numbers to Faloon, and he would try to memorize and repeat back the numbers that was being said. The goal was to try to expand his memory and see if he could improve after many sessions. On the first day (Monday), he [Faloon] showed, he could do average, about 7 digits. The next three days (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday), Faloon did a little better, averaging about 9 digits, but not better than the normal. On Friday, Steve found a way to break through. It would go like this: He would start off with a five-digit string and if he got that right, he would go on to six digits. If he got it wrong, he would drop the string by two and try again. After working with Ericsson for two-hundred sessions, he was able to memorize 82 digits! Some of us use the “usual approach” to improve in our work. The “usual approach” is to practice in the subject we want to learn about, and learn the basics. Then, we do some more practice, until we feel comfortable and confident in that subject. But, if we really want to do good in that subject, we have to push ourselves harder and harder, until we become better at our subject. It may take a while, but it will be worth it to become the “best” or almost the best. Ericsson describes four main characteristics of purposeful practice. They are slowly achieving little goals until you reach a long-term goal, focusing, getting feedback, and getting out of one’s comfort zone. Another characteristic would be you wanting to use purposeful practice. It will not work if we are forced to do it; we want to do it! The most important quality of purposeful practice is deliberate practice, which is pushing yourself until you are out of your comfort zone. These are all important if we want to get better, and use purposeful