10,000 Hours to Expert?

In his book Outliers the writer Malcolm Gladwell makes the claim that the way to achieve success in anything is to practice it for 10,000 hours. This really is something that appeals to me, and it certainly makes a lot of sense. Of course natural talent is nice, but my view is that practice is more important than talent; in fact talent might be practically useless without practice.

I remember reading somewhere else that with practice almost anyone can develop a skill to near perfection. Practice can get you there 80% of the way and natural talent is needed to get you that final 20%. For most people reaching the level of being 80% perfect would be an excellent achievement; we realize that we can't all be Mozart. To do this working for 10,000 hours doesn't seem like too much of a sacrifice.

People often talk about how they would love to master a skill. This could be learning a language or playing an instrument. If you are prepared to practice for 10,000 hours then it seems likely that you will be well on your way to becoming an expert. If you are to approach this skill full-time and could devote eight hours a day then you could be an expert in just over three and a half years. If you take weekends off then it will be nearer to five years, and if you can only manage an hour a day then this will be around 28 years.

It is tempting to feel a bit skeptical about the fact that it is 10,000 hours to mastery; why not 9,540? Does a magic bell go off in our heads when we reach that magic number? There is also some debate about the ability to master some skills even within this time. If I was to practice Tai Chi for 10,000 hours over three years, and I began calling myself Master Paul there will likely be those who will scoff. The same with practices like mediation where long hours spent doing it is no guarantee of mastery. I must have spent 10,000 hours writing, but I'm sure that nobody would believe that I'm anywhere near mastery; I feel embarrassed even to mention it.

Despite its flaws I still believe that 10,000 hours to mastery is a useful guide and a good aim. I hope to one day be able to devote 10,000 hours to something like Tai Chi to see where it would take me. There may be no exact number of hours that means mastery, but one thing for sure is that you won' become expert if you don't practice, practice, practice.