Ten Thousand Hours Rule

Most of us who are athletes or coaches will have heard of Anders Ericson’s theory about the 10,000 hours and 10 year rule to reaching an elite level as an athlete or an expert in a certain field. Well, I like to take that one step further to add that even 20,000 hours and 20 years won’t suffice if you don’t have the right people around you, the right intrinsic motivation, hunger and determination to go all the way.

However, a huge factor that I need to add in this theory, is that those hours and years need to be filled with purposeful practice or deliberate practice if you like. So what about the coach? Does this same theory apply? How would we define being an ‘expert’ in our profession? Well, I’m almost going into my 20th year as a coach and I’m pretty sure I’ve logged at least 40,000 hours, and certainly I don’t see myself anywhere near being an expert.

Why? Because if I had to be brutally honest with myself, the first 10 of those probably weren’t ‘purposeful’ enough. Now, that doesn’t mean I never took my profession seriously, far from it, I have always had the desire and determination to be the best i can be. What I mean is that only after those 10 years, did i only start to truly understand what it meant to have purpose in all I did. In my opinion, In coaching, the first 10 years is apprenticeship.

As athletes, we are defined by medals, rankings, records and accolades, but in coaching I believe that achieving success is an ongoing, continual learning endeavor. Success in coaching is not about who you’ve trained or how high you’re athletes have reached in a certain sport. Success in coaching is an ongoing pursuit of self improvement and finding ways to get better to make your athletes better – that is what purposeful practice is as a coach. Success in coaching is making better people, not just athletes.

You see, the better I can make myself, the better i can make my athletes. Ask yourself this: Has our own personal development and journey as a coach always been purposeful? Our have we been on cruise control, logging hours and just simply ‘training athletes’? Do you judge experience as having done a certain thing for 20 years? Or is experience having done a multitude of things, making loads of mistakes along the way in those 20 years? – I choose the later.

Becoming an ‘expert’ in coaching is not just about raking up 10 years or 10,000 hours of training and mentoring athletes, it’s about self development through your own purposeful practice, study, self investment and hours working on ways to get better. An athletes career may be short, but a coaches can go until he/she decides. I would only be blessed to know I could add on another 40,000 hours at least. The great John Wooden was still coaching into his late 80’s. In fact, even in his 90’s from his bedside, mentoring athletes. Here’s to 2015, here’s to more purposeful practice, more self investment, here’s to becoming even better.

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