posted on: March 22, 2018
author: Brian Lomax, Ed.D.
One of the secrets of elite performers in any context (music, sport, dance, etc.) is the concept of deliberate practice. Most people don’t practice their skills with clear intentions, but the best performers always have a specific focus when they practice or train. It is this focus that allows them to improve faster and reach a level of mastery in what they do.
Anders Ericsson is a sport psychologist at Florida State University and he has spent his career studying elite performers and their habits. In his book Peak, he goes into greater detail into “deliberate practice” and gives examples of how the best have used the concept to develop mastery. Sport psychologists generally spend a lot of time discussing the actual performance and the desire to get into the zone or flow, but Ericsson’s research focuses on skill building and practice. Oftentimes, this is not a flow experience because we are learning something new and we don’t have proficiency. We are going to make mistakes. There will be some frustration, but the important thing is that we are learning. We are on the journey toward mastery.
To see a great example of how deliberate practice can work, watch this 12 minute TED Talk by former professional tennis player, Eric Butorac. He used this approach so that he could leave the tennis court 1% better each day. What a great goal! To help him do that, he used a notepad to track what he was working on, and that leads us to 50 for 50 idea number 12: Start a Training Journal.
Using a training journal is next level for most of us. It represents a commitment to excellence and developing your potential. Basically, you have chosen “to go pro” with your attitude. The good news is that it’s not that hard to do and it doesn’t take hours of extra work. Here is how to use a training journal in 4 steps:
When you think of a stretch goal, think of stretching your abilities in some way. This goal should be within your control as opposed to winning or attaining a certain ranking. Improvement of footwork, effort, and a technical skill are all basic examples. Have an idea of what this needs to look like in order to say you have reached your goal. Realistically, you should expect to work on your stretch goal for several weeks to several months depending on the complexity of what you are learning.
While in practice or training, deliberately focus on the ability you are trying to improve and be conscious of how it’s going.
There are 3 sources of feedback that you can use to help you understand how you are progressing on your goal: you, your coach (or other observer), and objective tests.
You can be the first source of feedback. How do you think you did in training today? Did you make progress on your goal? Did you focus on it enough? Be honest with yourself. Once you’ve given yourself some feedback, seek out a coach or someone else who may have observed you working on your goal, and ask that person for his/her thoughts. There will probably be some days when no one is watching so this may not always be an option.
The last source of feedback is a test of the skill you are stretching. For example, if you are a tennis player trying to improve your serve to a particular target in the service box, you could set up a zone to serve into, and then hit 20 to 30 serves there. How many were in the zone? After a few more days of training, do the test again. Keep this up until you start to see objective progress. Designing tests are a great way to measure your progress because the numbers don’t lie. Don’t stop working/focusing on your goal just because you feel like you have improved. Prove it to yourself.
Write down the feedback and try to learn from it. Write down the results of your test. Did you discover something today that leads to better performance? If so, what was that? Write it in your journal. Perhaps that discovery will lead you to refine your focus for the next training session so that you can make even more progress the next time. That brings us back to Step 2 and you repeat steps 2, 3 and 4 until you have made the improvement you wanted. Then it’s on to the next stretch goal.
At any one time, I suggest you have one to three stretch goals that you are working on and they can be across a variety of process categories (technique, footwork, strength & conditioning, mental & emotional, competitive, etc.).
Go next level with your performances and start using a training journal with this 4-step process. Be sure to buy a nice looking journal to show how important this is to you.
I look forward to hearing about your progress.
Dr. Brian Lomax founded PerformanceXtra™ in 2009 with a mission of helping athletes achieve their goals and their top performances more consistently through a progression of mental skills that enables them to focus on what is truly important.
Learn more about the author: https://performancextra.com/brian-lomax/