To do something well you have to like it. That idea is not exactly novel. We’ve got it down to four words: “Do what you love.” But it’s not enough just to tell people that. Doing what you love to achieve any goal is very hard work.
In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell, a favorite author of mine, discusses research done at the Berlin Academy of Music. In this study, researchers divided violin students into three categories: the stars, the good performers, and the ones who would become teachers but not performers. Their research showed them that the number one predictor of which category a violinist fell in was the number of hours of practice.
For example, the future teachers had practiced 4,000 hours in their lifetime. The good performers, 8,000 hours. And those who were categorized as stars? Every single one of them had practiced at least 10,000 hours.
And here is the compelling part
… there wasn’t a single violinist who had practiced 10,000 hours who wasn’t a star. In other words, the guaranteed payoff of 10,000 hours of practice was that you would become a star. And according to Gladwell, 10,000 hours of practice is the magic number the best at anything.
Our Takeaway?
Above all, anyone can achieve any goal as long as three conditions exist:
Desire to achieve
Belief in the ability to achieve
Enjoy trying to achieve
That is why you’d better enjoy trying to achieve any goal. Because you’ll never spend 10,000 hours doing anything you don’t enjoy. And if you don’t enjoy the trying part, you’ll never be able to stick with it long enough to achieve your goal.
