Mental Representations

It is far from being a gift a lucky few have. It can be trained: By exposing kids to tones and challenging them to match them before age 4, they can develop perfect pitch for the rest of their life. Even adults can learn some of this, though there is some brain plasticity at that...

There is no such thing as natural talent or prodigies.

The right sort of practice carried out over a sufficient period of time leads to improvement. Nothing else. 

Principles of Deliberate Practice:

1. The field must be well developed. If there’s no competition to indicate skill, then it’s hard for there to be deliberate practice because the differences of the best are less clear.
2. Deliberate practice requires a teacher who can provide practi...

• We all follow pretty much the same pattern with any skill we learn: We start off with a general idea of what we want to do, get some instruction (teacher, a book, or a website), practice until we reach an acceptable level, and then let it become automatic. 
• But

• The best way to move past any plateau is to challenge your brain and body in a new way. Figure out the components of the skill that are holding you back, and find a way to push yourself more on those specific elements. Design a practice technique focused on improving that sp...

Keep in mind three Fs: Focus. Feedback. Fix it.

Break the skill down into components that you can do repeatedly and analyze effectively, determine your weaknesses, and figure out ways to address them.

Improvement is possible is we learn to let go of these myths:

1. The belief that one’s abilities are limited by one’s genetically prescribed characteristics.
2. If you do something for long enough, you’re bound to get better at it.
3. All it takes to improve is effort. If you ju...

The reason that most people don’t possess extraordinary physical capabilities isn’t because they don’t have the capacity for them, but rather because they’re satisfied to live in the comfortable rut of homeostasis and never do the work that is required to get out of it.

• Purposeful practice means having a plan - putting a bunch of baby steps together to hit a long term goal, 
• Purposeful practice is focused.
• Purposeful practice involves feedback: you have to know whether you are doing somethin...

• Naive practice means doing something repeatedly, and expecting that the repetition alone will improve one’s performance. This is how most people “practice” but it’s ineffective.
• Purposeful practice has well-defined, specific goals. W...