The “10000 hours” law has been out.
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Editor’s note: Malcolm Gladwell has proposed the “10,000 Hours Law”, that is, to become a world-class expert in a certain field, you must invest at least 10,000 hours for deliberate practice. But in most cases, we learn a new skill just to cope with the current task, not to become a world-class expert. In addition, we are more willing to leave time to do more things, not to mention no. How many people have perseverance to insist on 10,000 hours. Therefore, in order to master new skills that are sufficient to solve the current problems, you can first break down the skills you need to overcome the psychological barriers that may affect your real learning and self-correction in the process of learning, so that you It is possible to master a new skill that is sufficient to solve the problem within 20 hours. This article is translated from medium, article author Sylvain Saurel, original title A 4-Step Plan To Become Great In Any Field In Only 20 Hours.
Image source: Michel Catalisano on Unsplash
In order to keep up with the times, you need to constantly learn new knowledge and skills in your life. In fact, trying to expand your knowledge and skill boundaries will allow you to achieve as much success as possible in your life. In order to achieve this goal, you must learn. Therefore, in order to maintain a job in the increasingly competitive labor market, you must accept the reality of “live to the old and learn to be old”.
This is true, whether you are an ordinary employee, a freelancer or an entrepreneur. However, learning new things has never been an easy task. Mastering new skills is even more complicated. There is no end to learning. This road is long and requires a lot of patience and perseverance.
Malcolm Gladwell thinks you need 10,000 hours of practice
Malcolm Gladwell and his “10,000 Hours Law” highlight the difficulty of mastering new skills. His best-selling book in 2008, Outliers: The StoryThis number is emphasized in of Success.
Malcolm Gladwell suggests that in order to become a world-class expert in a field, you must spend at least 10,000 hours on deliberate practice.
It seems necessary to point out that this theory was based on an academic paper published by Anders Ericsson in 1993, entitled “The Role of Deliberate Practice in Accomplishing Expert Achievements,” but it did not How much resounding.
When you learn something new, what exactly are you doing for?
Say, you definitely don’t want to learn the level of world-class experts every time. There are many reasons:
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You don’t really know what you like or what you want to do
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More than one thing you want to do in your life
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You lack the willpower to fully engage in a field and become a world-class expert
Becoming a world-class expert is an extremely ambitious goal. It requires you to invest in time and cost, but also has the power to keep you going. The pay and sweat are not one and a half. You are welcome to say that not many people have this perseverance.
However, in most cases, you only want to be quite good in a certain field.
Josh Kaufman tells us in his book “The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything… Fast!” that in the face of an area you have never touched, it will be in this field within 20 hours. It is equally possible that knowledge has a long grasp and awareness.
In this book, he provides us with a four-step program that allows readers to quickly learn a skill and achieve a good enough level in any field within 20 hours. The reason why I wrote this article is to summarize these four steps so that you can benefit from the computer.
1. Decomposition ability
Speaking of learning, the first thing to do is to set goals accurately. For beginners, the motivation to learn new skills is usually to accomplish a specific task.
This may include playing a specific oneSong or learn enough arithmetic knowledge to complete math homework.
Dividing a skill into smaller skills allows you to focus on things that help you achieve the desired results.
Learn what you need urgently, and leave it to the future when you really need it.
The principle of the learning curve is like this, beginners can quickly benefit from the beginning. The Pareto Principle – or the “two-eighth law” we often say – also reveals the same truth. Understanding this and using it reasonably is critical to quickly mastering the skills you need.
Josh Kaufman shared with us an important discovery he learned while studying ukulele. He found that most popular songs only need four chords! By mastering these four chords, he has been able to play most of the popular songs of the past 50 years.
Especially when you think that he only did it in a few hours, it is even more incredible.
2. Learn to correct yourself
Learning has become a new way of delay, quite incredible, right? The act of acquiring information becomes more important than controlling the behavior itself. You mistakenly believe that you must know everything before you start learning, because you are afraid of making mistakes or doing a lot of useless work in the process of learning.
How much information do you need to quickly master a skill? This is the only correct question you need to pay attention to.
Josh Kaufman explains that what you really need is enough information to correct the mistakes you might make. This means you have to be able to recognize your mistakes and make adjustments when you realize that something is wrong. As time goes by, as you progress in the target area, you will gradually get rid of these mistakes.
Continuous trial and repetition is the only way to achieve the level of competence you expect.
3. Eliminate obstacles to action
For Josh Kaufman, the main reason people can’t learn a skill is that they can’t practice effectively by eliminating obstacles to practice.
Forget the so-called “10,000-hour law”, it is not easy for you to learn 20 hours in the process of learning a new skill.
Say it, you may not believe it, but the will is absolutely unreliable. It swayed, sometimes stimulating us, and sometimes disappeared. Once it comes to action, you find a lot of excuses for yourself!
It’s not true to focus on controlling our behavior. Instead, it is better to focus on improving the environment in which we operate so that it is beneficial for us to act. Therefore, it is important to remove the obstacles that prevent us from sitting and practicing.
In fact, everyone knows these things, but you will find that we are notThe law is implemented in action. For example, before you learn a new skill, you must master some other skills as a preparation. This is a potential obstacle that prevents you from taking further action.
Josh Kaufman pointed out that although you may feel that some preparatory work seems to be easy, when they accumulate, the psychological impact brought to you is extremely huge, which makes you delay again and again.
Your brain will find a variety of excuses to convince you to stay in the comfort zone. Don’t give it such an opportunity, you have to rule out all obstacles to practice and take action.
4. Biting the teeth to overcome the initial fear
The advantage of Josh Kaufman’s approach is that it positions the time to learn new skills and new knowledge for 20 hours – because 20 hours is not too much, everyone can take 20 hours.
In less than a month, 20 hours is equivalent to 45 minutes of training per day. In any case, it is much more realistic than telling yourself to spend 10,000 hours. Do you know what concept is 10,000 hours? It is equivalent to 5 years of full-time work. Is it too discouraged to think about it?
So, do you know where the real problem is? The real problems and risks are mainly when you start. Getting started is the hardest part. Therefore, although 20 hours seems simple, it will make many people unable to act.
When you start learning any skills, you will find yourself a variety of excuses. Many people are like this. They have already given up before they really started.
Therefore, the biggest revelation that Josh Kaufman brings to us is that the main obstacle to acquiring skills is not intellectual, but emotional. When you start, there will always be a sense of frustration, because you have no knowledge of this field before, you will feel stupid.
The problem is that no one wants to feel stupid. No one likes the fear of ignorance – it’s very simple, it’s not good. But this is an objective reality that must be faced. To be honest, everyone is faced with such obstacles when they start learning new skills. The key is to know how to identify this fear so that it can be better used before it is finally overcome.
Once this obstacle is overcome, you will eventually be able to learn any skill and master 80% of this skill and knowledge area within 20 hours.
Write at the end
As Josh Kaufman explains in his book, when you want to learn a new skill, you don’t want to be a world-class expert, but just enough to get the job done. Therefore, the most important thing is to determine what your real goal of learning this new skill is.
Then, you have to overcome the psychological barriers of fear of learning new things from scratch. This is a situation that all beginners will encounter, and you need to overcome it to continue learning and moving forward. Once this obstacle is overcome, you can easily achieve the desired results in 20 hours to master the new skills, only 45 minutes of hard work every day!
Translator: Xitang