Deliberate Practice
Practice like you have never won. Play like you have never lost.
Structured practice followed by major events.
At looked at some notes from 2001, and saw the key to my success.
In 2002, I completed an Ironman. Looking back on what would be one of the biggest accomplishments of my life, I see now that it was preceded by plenty of deliberate practice (long before I heard about the concept).
What did it look like?
- Organize and lead weekly training rides with the tri club.
- Do at least 1 major ride/race each month:
- Horsetooth half marathon (4/21)
- Wildflower Tri (5/5)
- Metric century (5/20)
- Boulder Peak Tri (8/5)
- Harvest Moon Tri (9/9)
I had notes about how I felt back then that my best thinking occurred early in the day. I was waking up at 5am. I struggled with the same things I struggle with today, including the one notebook. At the time, I remember how much I loved my Jornada.
PS: If you are looking for the modern day equivalent to the Jornada, check out the GPD Micro PC.
Back then I was very goal driven. I see that I limited myself to 5 personal goals and 5 professional goals. For the most part, I met all of them. The story continues here.
Fast forward 20 years.
I wake up early and fine that the first 2-3 hours of the day (5-8am) are often when my mind is at it's best.
But when I look at how I'm using my 'prime' time, I'm not so sure I'm always make the best of it.
Deliberate practice is a way to change that. It's essentially about picking the topics that my future self needs. And because it takes time to gain the knowledge, it's essential to start now. Examples: Discourse, Electron, Google Analytics, Search Console, etc..
These fall into a few main categories:
- Marketing
- Development
- Reading/Writing