Lose 14 kg in two weeks

I wonder how many people fall for such announcements and actually believe that they will lose a kilo per day. More interesting, however, is why, despite the fact that most of us don’t believe this we still have on our shelves, like I do, books such as “French in 30 days” or “20 quick ways to improve memory”. Will shortcuts get you to the goal? All indications say no.

Before April 5, 2010 Dan McLaughlin never played golf. On his 30^th birthday he decided to become a professional golfer, one of the 250 taking part in the legendary US PGA Tour. Did someone who hasn’t been training golf since childhood ever achieve this? No. Dan’s Plan – that’s how his website and blog is called – is simple. He needs to spend 10,000 hours on training to achieve the status of a golf superstar. 10,000 hours, with about 30 hours of practice per week is some 6,5 years. Whether Dan meets his goal and joins the elite golfers club we will see in 2016.

Why 10,000 hours? In 1993, Anders Ericsson’s research team published a paper entitled The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance which points out that innate talent is not the sole or determining factor for success. Comforting? Maybe a little. An essential factor in reaching the top of your chosen specialization is 10 years of intensive training, which makes about 10,000 hours. The theory was popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his celebrated book The Outliers. What do The Beatles, Bill Gates and Mozart have in common? Before they achieve success they’ve reached the target of 10 thousand hours of practice.

But suppose you don’t want to be a pro in your category. You only want to learn to play the guitar, a new language, lose weight or just self-improve. Assuming that the effective practice time is one-two hours a day, after a year you should reach an adequate level of expertise. If you want to teach your discipline, you should spend 2,000 hours practicing, that is 5 years.

No wonder we are bombarded with ads like “Closer, quicker and easier” (Żabka shop). Shortcuts sell, hard work not really. Also at school and later at work, we are programmed to make a quick impact, killing creativity and forgetting about true efficiency. Many of us fall into the habit of immediate gratification (I wrote about that last week – click here).

To conclude – although shortcut solutions are attractive, they do not lead us to our goal. All resolutions need time to mature. If saving time and energy is our priority, then shortcuts are really just robbing us of time and energy. Any fraud makes it most likely that something will need repeating or improving.

I wrote Dan McLaughlin an email asking him if he was an introvert or an extrovert. Waiting for the reply. Big plus for his personality, whichever it is. He already announced that once he becomes a professional golfer he will start practicing a new area, devoting 10,000 hours for preparation.

P.S. In Polish there are so many synonyms for scam and so few for practice.

Website and blog of Dan McLaughlin – click here

Anders Ericsson The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance – click here

Malcolm Gladwell The Outliers – click here