Caterpillar at Highlands Nature Sanctuary, taken September 2008
(I see caterpillars as having a wonderful mindset about trust and patience.)
I've mentioned that I'm inspired by Carol Dweck's book, Mindsets, and now I'm always on the search for evidence of new growth mindsets I can live into.
Malcolm Gladwell's new book, Outliers, is at the top of my "read-next" list. In it, he examines, unearths — and shatters — some of stories about what makes people successful. (New York Times review of book here.)
One of the principles Gladwell talks about in the book is the 10,000 hour rule, in which he quotes research by Dr. Daniel Levitin that found that it takes 10 years and 10,000 hours of practice to become a world-class expert in your field.
One of my favorite weekly emails, Michael Neill's Genius Catalyst, talked about this 10,00 hour rule in his latest edition. (Do read this — it's chock-full of good ideas and examples. I especially love what he shares about Anthony Robbins mindset on mastery.) Neill concludes with this:
When someone tells me “I can’t draw well”, or “I’m no good at sports”, or “I’m not a natural writer”, I invariably ask them “how many hours have you spent practicing?” It is very rare indeed that the answer is anywhere near 100 hours, let alone 10,000. The implication is that their apparent lack of skill is usually less a function of a lack of anything on the inside than it is a reflection of a lack of time and effort spent on the outside.
For me, the point of all this is not to give up on something you’d love to do because you’re apparently not very good at it. Almost any worthy goal will succumb to an investment of time – and time is the one commodity that we all have in equal abundance!
This article reminded me of when I shared my hesitation with my editor over signing the contract to write my book, Everybody Loves Ice Cream.
I expressed my concern that I wasn't an expert on ice cream, just someone who loved it, had visited a few places and liked to make it.
My editor's reply was quick and true: you will be an expert when you are finished writing the book.
And he was right. I was an expert when I finished. I estimate I spent on 35 hours a week for nearly seven months researching everything ice cream — which would (according the scale in Neill's article), put me at the experienced expert level.
I often share in my writing classes I conversation I once had with one of my favorite writers, essayist Scott Russell Sanders. I was lucky enough to have dinner with him one night when I worked for Ohio Magazine (Sanders was a sometime contributor to the magazine.)
I remember him saying that he was a professional and published writer for something like nine years before he ever felt he was any good at it.
I was shocked at the time to hear that — I had read the stuff he published early on and found it wonderful. But I got that he was talking about mastery level writing. The kind of writing where you know what you can capture in words and you know how to get it on the page.
I know now that that kind of proficiency only comes with time and showing up at the page day after day.
Upon reflection, I find it inspiring to that it only took me about a half a year to gain my ice cream expertise. I commit to remembering that fact next time I want to go for something big in my life.
Tell me, in what areas of your life do you want to develop mastery? And what are you willing to put in for practice to get more masterful?
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Waving hello to my writer friend, Kris, who has starting her own blog on writers and writing. Check her out here:http://writingbabe.com.