Wednesday, September 21, 2011

How to succeed in everything

So inspired by this post from Cindy's blog:

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[following excerpt adapted from 'The Genius in All of Us' by David Shenk]
Deliberate practice

Deliberate practice involves repeated attempts to reach beyond one's current level.

Deliberate practice goes far beyond the simple idea of hard work.

For deliberate practice to work, the demands have to be serious and sustained.

Simply playing lots of chess or soccer or golf is not enough. Simply taking lessons from a wonderful teacher is not enough. Simply wanting it badly enough is not enough.

Deliberate practice requires a mind-set of never, ever, being satisfied with your current ability.

It requires a self-critique, a pathological restlessness, a passion to aim consistently just beyond one’s capability so that daily disappointment and failure is actually desired, and a never-ending resolve to dust oneself off and try again and again and again.

It also requires enormous, life-altering amounts of time – a daily grinding commitment to becoming better.

In the long term, the results can be highly satisfying. But in the short-term, from day to day and month to month, there’s nothing particularly fun about the process or the substantial sacrifices involved.

We do not – and cannot – know our own limits unless and until we push ourselves to them. Finding one’s true natural limit in any field takes many years and many thousand hours of intense pursuit.

What are your limits?

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There is no such thing as failure. Only success that hasn't been pursuited. And it'd do us all some good to remember that. If you want something then work for it. No, really work for it. Go above and beyond what's necessary, what's expected. Only then will you always be at your best. We've all only got one life to live (unless you're a Time Lord rofl). Why waste days of it being someone who's only a fraction of what you could be?

4 comments:

  1. Lol nice! I thought you'd like this one!

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  2. Zumba on Monday sounds great! I've been going to all the Monday zumbas for a while now. Only been to one Friday zumba... lazy me :p Shall we meet in the rec centre by the vending machines?

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  3. Zumba's on 5.20pm Mon/Wed/Fri. I lied because I said I was going to all the Friday classes when in reality I've only been to one! Don't worry about not knowing all the moves. I pretty much bumble my way through it all. It repeats often enough too so you can catch on easily.

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