Before Success, Aim for Bread Slicing Confidence
And I mean the real success, not just breadcrumbs of it.
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Can you slice bread without giving it a thought?
Some people will slice their fingers off in the process. But to most of us, bread slicing is such a natural process. Now let me ask you a question.
Do you think it’s so easy for you to cut into that bread because you’re incredibly talented at holding a knife?
Or is it because you’ve once cut into one of your fingers, paid really close attention to how not to do it again, and then repeated the process a thousand times?
Success and confidence come from knowing what you’re doing because you’ve done it all too many times before, and made sure to do it right from the start.
Success in life comes from smart preparations and assiduous repetition.
First prepare, then practice, then repeat
Repeat an action the wrong way and you’ll learn how to do it wrong.
Gladwell’s rule that “ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness”? Perhaps he should have emphasized a bit more that it’s not just about how much you practice, but also about how you practice.
Daniel Coyle made it much clearer that “practice doesn’t make perfect”, in his little book called… “The Little Book of Talent: 52 Tips for Improving Your Skills”.
“practice doesn’t make perfect”
As Coyle puts it:
“Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes myelin, and myelin makes perfect.”
Before you can start practicing, you need to lay out what you’re practicing, step by step.
Make sure you know the correct way to practice something before you invest 10,000 hours into it.
