Practice makes perfect.
We’ve all heard someone, probably a teacher, tell us that. That is why teachers assign homework.
But the truth is, practice only makes you good enough – good enough to master the basics of whatever skill you are trying to learn. Then, you move on to the next thing, another topic or skill. That’s the process millions of schoolchildren follow. It’s the educational process in America.
Analytical practice, however, takes you from good to virtuoso.
Analytical practice is very different from plain vanilla practice. It requires more consistent effort and more time.
In the case of analytical practice, analysis results in improved quality. You practice and then you dissect and analyze every component of the actions involved in that skill.
Take tennis, for example.
The good tennis players master every skill: serve, volley, backhand, forehand, overhead and drop shots.
But virtuosos don’t stop at good.
For virtuosos, once they master the basics, that is when the hard work really begins.
Virtuoso tennis players will focus months on one stroke. They will hit hundreds of backhands down the line and hundreds of backhands cross court. They will hit hundreds of backhands with topspin. They will hit hundreds of backhands with a slice. They will hit hundreds of short backhands, those that land within the service lines. They will hit hundreds of long backhands, those the land within on inch of the baseline.
Each time they hit one particular type of backhand, they stop to analyze what went right and what went wrong. Then they make adjustments and practice some more.
Since 2013 I have been applying Analytical Practice to my writing. Every morning I write for at least one hour. Then, at night, I analyze what I wrote that morning. I dissect it, study it, and often, re-write what I wrote that morning.
After years of doing this, I have had at least a dozen of my media articles go viral. I’ve had books that have become bestsellers. That’s not an accident. It’s the byproduct of analytical practice.
If you want to take your life to the next level, you must become a virtuoso in whatever it is you do. Virtuosos make more money. Because they make more money, they are able to accumulate more wealth.
And the path to becoming a Virtuoso is Analytical Practice.
One of my clarinet teachers… one of the best of the best (Robert Marcellus) used to tell me, when you’ve practiced it (a certain passage or scale) enough to the point where you can play it correctly you’ve done 5% of your practicing.