Sublime

Anders Ericsson, a Swedish psychologist, who insists that practice is deliberate. You need to be in a zone where there are no distractions, so you can achieve flow. Ericsson also maintains that if you manage to get into the zone, you can expect to be tired afterwards. Why? Because you have been focusing so intensely it saps your energy. Therefore,

It is better to train at 100 percent effort for less time than at 70 percent effort for a longer period. Once you find you can no longer focus effectively, end the session.

Abilities often require a considerable amount of education and apprenticeship to develop. Just because you have a natural proclivity toward something doesn’t mean you’ll automatically be expert at it.

Prepare

If you don’t produce, you won’t thrive—no matter how skilled or talented you are.

The future teachers had practiced four thousand hours in their lifetime. The good performers, eight thousand hours. And those who were categorized as stars? Every single one of them had practiced at least ten thousand hours. And here’s the compelling part: There wasn’t a single violinist who had practiced ten thousand hours who wasn’t a star. In ot

A study of music students aged eight to eighteen and ranging in skill from rank novices to students in a highly selective music school found that when they began training there was no difference in the amount of practice undertaken between any of the groups of players, from the least to the most accomplished. The students who would go on to be most