Work Longer!

Humans give up too soon and get frustrated much too quickly than what is reasonable or mathematically realistic.  Malcolm Gladwell, in his book "Outliers", introduces the concept of "10,000 hours".  The idea is that to become an expert or achieve mastery of a skill, it takes about 10,000 hours.  That is a lot of hours.  2 hours of practice a day, 6 days a week.  12 hours.  16 weeks in a typical season.  192 hours.  That equates to 52 seasons to get to 10,000 hours.   That won't work unless you plan on getting a third major.  How about ... 2 hours of practice a day, 6 days a week for 50 weeks a year.  600 hours a year.  17 years.  That is a lot better ... assuming we work hard during the summer, off season and only take a day off each week.  17 years is a lot more than one week or one season or one career for most people and unfortunately, most people get frustrated for their lack of progress or their failure to reach goals in too short of a period of time.  Some people get frustrated in one practice and want to quit (maybe not the sport but they quit trying to improve on a particular skill).  But that 17 years is a lot shorter when we put in more time each day through workouts, visualization, eating right, getting sleep, watching videos about our events, mental rehearsal and mental preparation.  That 17 years is a lot shorter when we focus on progression and improvement and not merely the end goal and results.  ”The thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That’s it. And what’s more, the people at the very top don’t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.”  Malcolm Gladwell.    And today, that "harder" equates to "longer".