Most of us want to be successful and have a good life. What is success? We are all different and have different needs and aspirations and so what is important to one person may not be to another. Success I would suggest is about achieving goals we have set and becoming more proficient at things we do. What is known about achieving goals?
Professor Anders Ericsson and colleagues studied what makes an expert and discovered the key factors are practice coupled with feedback both from experts and equally important the ‘inner coach’. They found it took about ten thousand hours of practice. This equates to about ten years based on the average working week. If you think about things you feel very proficient at, how many hours or years did it take you? How much did you need external feedback and how much came from self-critiquing?
What is it about feedback that is so important, whether it be by others or self (inner coach)? It is the passing of observations and the asking of questions that raises one’s awareness of what one is doing so that you can choose to do it differently next time. When the changes achieve better results the next time it re-enforces the change you have made and if repeated regularly it becomes a habit so improving performance and leads to achieving success.