Hopefully you’re familiar with The 10,000 Hour Rule researched by the author of the book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell. He says that it takes roughly 10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field.
I was reminded this week that 10,000 hours is actually the average amount of time required for mastery. If I can learn a skill quicker than you, or perhaps have more quality in my practice, I may only require 3,000 hours.
Fascinated by this measure of time, I was thinking of how I’ve been educating my training group on making best use of the first 15 minutes of training. It’s been made available for their own free time with the ball.
It was very hard to watch at first. There was mostly a lot of standing around, chatting, a few kicks here and there and the usual ‘pot shots’ on goal. I couldn’t believe it! Not only were they not getting ready and focused for the upcoming session, but they were losing quality, mastery time. When I was playing, I knew what a difference 15 minutes every day with the ball made to my ball mastery and self-confidence. I especially prided myself on being one of the most technical female players in the country. There was no such thing as a ‘kick-about’ for me. I set myself targets every day in juggling and other skills to maintain my standards and be sure to keep improving on the basics.
It sounds simple enough in my head, but it’s been a challenge to get the players to understand what a difference 15 minutes of purposeful practice can contribute to their mastery hours. How many touches can you get in 15 minutes, boys? What did you work on today? Try this skill?
It’s been satisfying to see them start taking responsibility for their mastery hours. As much as we’re blessed with a lot of football time at IFS, it can also lead to a false sense of security and a deeper proposition to master.
The trouble is, you think you have time.
While I watch tv at night I practice my juggling every time the ads come on. That way I don’t have to watch the boring ads and I get some juggling practice done.
That’s a great use of time Mason, careful you don’t smash the tv 🙂