When it comes to getting good at something or making real progress one thing is key.

‘Put In The Time’

The word on the street at the moment is that it takes 10000 hours practice to become an expert at anything.

Now you don’t have to be into mathematics to have a sense that that means years of daily practice.

But as someone interested in self development you have already read that it is a life-long journey. Piece of cake… Right?

For Self Development People

As with any grand statement that throws magic numbers into the air there are a number of little things that need to be considered to make it useful.

Reading about self development counts as 0 hours practice.

So if you are at 0 hours, shutdown your computer now and go watch yourself somewhere quiet.

If you are still here you might remember I discussed that method learning acts as a multiplier in my two-pronged learning post. So unless reading is combined with substance learning (aka. Real practice) you get nothing out of it.

You don’t become an expert at self development, only an expert in self development tools.

Just because you have been interested in self development for 10 years doesn’t make you necessarily an expert in self development. To be an expert in self development you have to be an expert in each of the skills that are core for self development (I wonder what those are???).

There is very little point in sticking your foot in lots of little ponds, rather it is better to pick one and dive into the depths.

In the IT industry I’m starting to see the advantage of ‘generalists’ or poly-skilled people in teams. However I think a generalist is not all that useful unless he has a speciality. So we have people that are good all around so they can work together and then harness each others specialities.

I think this sort of thing would be useful in the realm of self development. To have a resource skilled in meditation, resource skilled in moment-to-moment awareness, resource skilled in compassion and so on.

With this sort of resource list we gain access to truly deep knowledge but I’m getting sidetracked.

My point is, don’t just practice a technique for an hour a day for a month (~30 hours), then choose a different technique and so on.

Moment-to-moment techniques have the most potential to be learned quickly (but they still require enormous amounts of effort) simply because they can be done all the time (16hrs x 365days = 5,840hrs). So in my opinion it is a great place to start to get a solid foundation in self development before you branch out.

Pick your tool and start digging.

You can be an expert in anything, but not everything.

Unless you are trying to be an expert at watching TV you may aswell throw it out now and work on what you really want.

You only have so much time, use it where you want.

For a great rant on the topic: you can have do or be anything but you cannot have do or be everything (Japanese language learning site I use)

Put in the Time where it Matters

If you really want to learn then put in all the hours that it takes to get deep and meaningful results. (Then tell me about them)