Indulge In Deliberate Practice, And You'll Improve Your Craft.
Art For Art's Sake: Vol 2 Part 7
There is nothing called overnight success. It is only through spending night after night, deliberately practising your craft, do you become a success.
So if you want to become a master in your art, indulge in deliberate practice.
Being deliberate with your practice means that you make a focused effort towards achieving whatever it is that is your goal.
For example, when I started writing and publishing my work online, my only goal was to publish my essays five times a week for six months non-stop. That's it. It didn't need to be the best, longest, or most philosophical writing. My aim was to show up as a writer. Once I achieved that goal, it became easier to tackle the next goal - improving the quality of my essays.
This made me realise that the best way to put deliberate practice into practice is by going public about it.
Showing up regularly to my writing and sharing my words with the internet has made me a better writer than I would have been if I was writing by myself.
It helped me in three ways -
One - I practised my craft. You won't get better at your craft until you practice it - it's as simple as that.
Two - I started getting feedback - what the readers liked or disliked, what they thought, and where we agreed and disagreed. This helped me understand my readers and form an informed conclusion about the effectiveness of my writing.
Three - Publishing my writing gave me proof that I have what it takes to be a writer.
Every bit of effort you put in counts. It was writing one essay at a time and publishing them one day at a time that I am now capable enough to tackle bigger projects like writing a complete book.
Forget about decades, forget about years, and forget about months.
Focus on the days.
- Austin Kleon, Show Your Work
