Quotes About Mastery

Purposeful practice has several characteristics that set it apart from what we might call "naive practice," which is essentially just doing something repeatedly, and expecting that the repetition alone will improve one's performance.

TEACHER: How many times did you play it? STUDENT: Ten or twenty. TEACHER: How many times did you play it correctly? STUDENT: Umm, I dunno . . . Once or twice . . . TEACHER: Hmm . . . How did you practice it? STUDENT: I dunno. I just played it. This is naive practice in a nutshell: I just played it. I just swung the bat and tried to hit the ball. I just listened to the numbers and tried to remember them. I just read the math problems and tried to solve them.

You seldom improve much without giving the task your full attention.

Imagine a world in which doctors, teachers, engineers, pilots, computer programmers, and many other professionals honed their skills in the same way that violinists, chess players, and ballerinas do now. Imagine a world in which 50 percent of the people

The thing all mental representations have in common is that they make it possible to

most traits that play a role in expert performance can be modified by the right sort of practice,

Truth obeys no one. That is why it is free, and freeing. And since there is nothing other than truth, it commands no one, either. To what or to whom could it give orders? At such times, we have neither God nor master.

Guitarists spend half their time tuning and the other half playing out of tune.

ver trabajar a un artesano me calma, me ancla en la tierra, me inspira. Me recuerda la extraordinaria importancia que en este mundo tiene el trabajo bien hecho.

Alexander was no longer so much the master of his lust, having been fawned upon by Fortune, whom mortal men too little distrust.

The true master knows that if he had a God he could understand, he would never hold Him to be God.

Every day, work to refine the skills you have and to add new tools to your repertoire.

I got into pool tournaments when I was five, playing every weekend in competitions. Then one day I started playing snooker. I learnt by practising on my own, repeating the same shots again and again, and watching other players and copying what they did.

Sometimes I write quickly, sometimes I spend several weeks on a single poem. I would really love for readers not to be able to guess which of the poems took so much work!

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

It's a weird thing where, especially in jazz, you have to totally mention cutting sessions and people one-upping each other and people being super, super tough on each other. And out of it emerge these genius musicians.

We're fans of stuff like Maiden, but I think we generally get it from weirder places. For me, the Eagles' 'Hotel California' represents one of the most brilliant harmony approaches to music. Boston did it very well, too.

You should welcome getting older in golf. With greater knowledge of your swing, you, too, can keep improving.

Anything I do, I want to do it well.

To do a common thing uncommonly well brings success.

Enjoy the satisfaction that comes from doing little things well.

Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I've a call.

I want to do one thing and do it well.

Success is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.