5 steps to becoming an expert:

Malcolm Gladwell popularized the concept of the 10,000 hour rule — it takes about 10,000 hours of “deliberate practice” to become an expert in a field.

Other than lots of practice, what can help us master something?

• Be cooperative and focus on your own performance — not outdoing others.

• A negative attitude, not a positive attitude, makes you more likely to learn from your mistakes. In fact, the shift to focusing on negative feedback is one of the marks of an expert mindset.

• It pays to understand what truly motivates us and the rules our brains work by.

• Make goals and deadlines concrete to reduce procrastination and make behaviors automatic to get more tasks done.

• It’s important to understand the best ways to study and to set goals.

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